Alright y'all welcome back to the show It's anti-war radio.
I'm Scott Horton and our next guest on the show today is Ray McGovern He was a CIA analyst for 27 years.
He now writes at Consortium News with the heroic investigative journalist Robert Perry and He's got a piece we're featuring in his archive at anti-war comm today.
It's called Petraeus's CIA fuels Iran murder plot.
Oh Welcome back Ray.
How are you?
I'm doing fine Scott.
Thank you.
I really appreciate you joining us today.
So Well, let's see of all the alphabet agencies involved in this thing Haven't heard too much about the CIA, but your article points us over to David Ignatius as you say His a custom role as unofficial surrogate CIA Spokesman has added some very important details to the story of this supposed Iranian terrorist kidnapping plot assassination attempt against the Saudi ambassador to the United States Yeah, he has Ignatius can be depended upon to echo the line from the CIA as well as from Places like the White House this time.
It's not so much a case of reading between the lines He lets the cat right out of the bag by saying Hey folks, we know that initially the White House and Justice Department spokespeople Considered this plot, you know this This used car salesman Mexican drug cartel plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador As As they put it Not persuasive.
Okay, but Don't let it down to the rescue David Ignatius and David Petraeus and what did David Petraeus do?
Well, he turned the implausible into plausible What his team did in leaping to the rescue here was?
Was to serve up quote evidence and quote that tends to confirm things according to Ignatius Now this is interesting because before Ignatius's article I hadn't seen anything really to do to discuss what role the CIA may have played in all this quote information and quote But you know, it served served to reason that since this is CIA's province, you know foreign intelligence collection That it would be in charge of what whatever was Collected and would be in a position to comment on whether it seemed plausible or not Well, here's here's Ignatius quote one big reason that top US officials became convinced that the plot was real is that CIA gathered information collaborating the informants juicy allegations and showing that the plot had support from the covert action arm of the Iranian government Well, all right Ignatius adds that this was intelligence collected in Iran Well, you know what?
That's really depressing because that shows that the folks working with Petraeus have been able to do a repeat of the the prelude to the war in Iraq Most people will remember that during that period according to that famous British memorandum in Downing Street The intelligence and facts were fixed around the policy text It was just a little aside here Fox News immediately demurred and so well fixed has a different connotation in British usage So I called my friend Harry in London Harry tell me what fixed means What do you mean?
What Ray?
Have you lost it?
No, no, just tell me in British usage, but it's fixed me He says go free your fixer.
You fix election.
You fix a horse race.
What's what's better?
Thank you very much Harry Texas fixed.
Okay, and that's what they do.
I'd forgotten that part of it.
But yeah, that is fun, isn't it?
Yeah, they they did that before Iraq and you know this whole business about finding some sort of quasi Cossus belly here some some ostensible reason to Bloody the noses of those terrible Iranians.
Well, you remember that before the attack on Iraq?
70% of Americans believed if Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9-11 why because of his quote ties with al-qaeda All right But wait a minute now because obviously your point being that the media and the government can lead everybody Terribly astray and get us into horrible wars that we know even word I'm with that but but I want to stick to the the details here a little bit and see if I can get you to Help me understand You know, for example, is it even true that this guy's cousin is in the Quds Force?
Or that's where the money came from or that, you know, Gareth Porter has a piece today and from his analysis Analysis, he says maybe these guys were trying to sell some drugs and then once it got to the FBI informant That's when it turned into a terrorist thing.
It had nothing to do with a kidnapping or anything like that until then That kind of idea.
I wonder what you think Mm-hmm.
Yeah, just to finish up the reason I was alluding to all that business was simply that they can take concocted intelligence to justify Well with with Iraq and now it appears worst case here that they're can talk concocting Intelligence or terrorist plots to facilitate the Israelis attacking Iran The plot is that cockamamie one The best guess and I've talked to two dozen of my former colleagues real pros in this business lawyers as well as operatives and analysts and the two most Trusted ones tell me they see the hand of Israel behind this that would very bit much be in consonance with Past most side practice to suck this kind of Information into the system in America and that they have willing accomplices in the White House first and foremost John Brennan Who you know couldn't become head of the CIA because of his support for torture and rendering and black prisons and all that But wonder of wonders it was recruited by the Barack Obama people to be a very very influential Deputy National Security Advisor chief of counterterrorism in the White House It's not at all beyond the possibility that Brennan and in concert with Israeli Intelligence is peddling this stuff and not being clear with the president as to how real it is Do we know in other words you're skeptical that this hundred thousand dollars because see here's the thing, right?
We've had dozens and dozens and over the years we've covered dozens and dozens of completely bogus FBI entrapment Ridiculous, Miami 7 style terrorist cases, right?sure, what what makes this one seem different other than they're accusing a state of being behind it is That they're saying but this money came from overseas and landed here.
And so something about it is real There's you know, I don't know what what kind of hat but some sort of hat will hang on something here And and you're saying that you think it's possible then that or these other CIA guys You're talking to are saying they think it's possible that maybe the other end of this plot On the other side of the world from here was actually the Israelis posing as the Iranians Well, either that or the Israelis having infiltrated quits or the revolutionary guards, you know They're very enterprising and very imaginative like the DEA and the Zetas cartel Sure, and you know this transfer of money it was done in such a way that it had to be detected I mean, hello, I can't put $20,000 if I had $20,000 I can't put $20,000 in the bank without everybody and his brother knowing about it and Homeland Security FBI and everything else So, you know the point is that this was done in a way that was bound to be exposed Okay, and to provide fodder for those who want to blacken Iran and tell the whole world, you know this this Place not only is developing a nuclear weapon, which it is not Okay, which it is not but it's also a mounting terrorist Operations even here in the good old USA It's pretty transparent and what really really troubles me is that Barack Obama has let himself become Personally involved in this thing you can see him out there, you know See him as citizens conference a wishy-washy sort of like a backbone sort of guy He said no now everything's on the table But we're working real hard with sanctions and we're going to pursue this in a political way well, you know, he always says yes, but and with the people like Brennan and the Israeli people in town here and and his sensitivity to Trying to be even more pro-israeli than his Republican possible Opponents in the in the election next year.
Now.
There's a Volatile mix here the stars seem aligned for Netanyahu to look on all this and say hmm Well now that I've got the most of the mainstream media showing how bad Iran is to the point of mounting terrorism within the US and I've got people Pulling for open war against Iran.
Maybe this is what I'll do and you know what?
This is this is what really bothers me if Netanyahu were to conclude that Obama Barack Obama would have no option but to lockstep jump in salute smartly and Engage on behalf of the of Israel our armed forces if he thought that that was the case You know, he would have Substantial reason to believe that to be the case and he I'm afraid would be right Whether Barack Obama knows this or not He has very few adult advisors around him people like Brennan aren't even gonna tell him how good this information is You know when he told Geithner, for example, hey, look at Citibank.
We let's see.
We did it didn't do it So do you think that with that precedent that big precedent billions of dollars in in public view that a guy like John?
Brennan would feel it necessary to share everything he knows about Quote intelligence and quote that originated with Massad.
I don't think so not judging from Brennan's record So the president himself may become hostage to this kind of situation Feeling has no way out other than to seem so pro-israeli That he will back Israel even if it provokes and that's how it would start even if it provokes some sort of Iranian Military action by something the Israelis did so this is very volatile People have forgotten people have forgotten there was eight years eight full years that Iran stopped working on a nuclear weapon and people have forgotten that it's possible to drum up this kind of Furore and start the juggernaut toward war and unless we get a new set in the constellation See last time we had Admiral Mullen.
Okay, he's a professional military guy Okay back in 2007.
Yeah, and he knew which end was up and we had Admiral Fallon head of CENTCOM who?
Famously told my friend Pat Lang.
Look Pat.
It is not going to be a war on my watch and Pat looked at me He says is it okay if I tell people that and and Fallon winked at him And so Pat told the Washington Post so Fallon was was canned But Mullen was still around and when the CIA came out with an honest estimate About the Iranians having stopped working on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 Guess who went to the White House to talk to the president about it Mullen, and he said now mr.
President This is Bush time.
You know this kind of this kind of judgment is bound to leak So I think maybe you ought to publish the principal judges to this thing This at a time when Cheney and Bush were beating the drums for war on the premise that Iraq was about to get a nuclear Weapon now when Mullen winked at the president the president knew damn well that number one He couldn't fire Mullen because of what Mullen would say and number two Mullen or his friends would leak this information sure as hell if the president didn't didn't release the key judgments himself So in his book Bush says so I decided to Release the the key judgments so that we could put some facts together with these erroneous judgments facts there We go again facts to fix the intelligence so it's a purpose at this time It didn't that time it didn't work this time.
It may because Mullen's not around anymore I don't know much about his replacement But certainly he doesn't have the cachet or the strength to repeat the very strong representations that Mullen made After all the military know better than anyone else what war is like and they know that a war with Iran would be well as I've said before would make Iraq look like a volleyball game between Mount St.
Ursula and st.
Helena's high school All right.
Well, it's Ray McGovern He's the co-founder of veteran intelligence professionals for sanity And he writes at consortium news.com the website of the heroic Robert Perry the great investigative journalist We run everything he writes at anti-war comm/McGovern and the latest is called Petraeus's CIA fuels Iran Murder plot and now I kind of wanted to ask you Ray whether you think that maybe the tide has turned a little bit They've hit us with so many lies so many really big lies with major Consequences behind them for so many years in a row now, it seems like you know, maybe on this one They're not quite getting away with it.
I'm not You know the best surveyor of all cable TV news, but certainly online in you know The web on the websites of major newspapers are many articles with many quotes of many Iran Experts casting major doubt on this story and it seemed like it made a big splash for a day But not much longer than that well And my time I would like to be optimistic about that You can bet that John Brennan does not select anti-war dot-com Articles for Obama to read at night.
Okay, Obama's in a bubble Panetta Panetta has Described himself in his confirmation hearings as a creature of Congress.
Where is Congress on this?well these Somebody suggested that that they ought to make Israel, you know the 51st state But that was rejected by a a vociferous Republican majority who said no.
No, that would only give them two senators Okay, that that's how Congress is So the constellation in the in the internet world May be better and indeed even the New York Times Not wanting to be not wanting to be be impaled on bad information again could see through this one But that doesn't really matter a hell of a lot What really matters is how Obama judges his chances in the next presidential election?against people who who fawn all over themselves fall all over themselves to the seat seem a hundred percent in favor of Israel and even more important how Netanyahu judges the chances that our president would do anything other than salute smartly and Support any kind of armed conflict in that part of the world?
Mm-hmm.
Well, you know earlier I talked with Flint Leverett from the New American Foundation former CIA Analyst himself and National Security Council guy, etc Keeper of the great blog race for Iran and his major point was that you know The details of the plot that that seemed not so believable aside for the moment in the larger sense Iran's foreign policy is Definitely not to pick a fight like this that in fact they're winning on many fronts and By winning that means they're still able to deter us and maintain their independence from us and they're winning by Not doing things like murder Saudis that would you know, obviously inflame Saudi opinion against them They would rather have the the people of the Middle East's opinion on their side If not the governments of the Middle East on their side and so far it's working for them Especially in Iraq where where America finished off Saddam Hussein for them But that it just is absolutely implausible according to Flint Leverett and his analysis that they would engage in anything like this That would give America an excuse to escalate the conflict even the sanctions even short of military conflict Well Flint Leverett and his spouse Hillary man know more about Iran Than or have forgotten more about Iran than I'll ever learn.
They are the best Okay and of course the the obverse of what they've said is If Iran couldn't benefit from this kind of thing and that's clear Cooley Bono who would benefit from this kind of thing?
What country in that part of the world would see advantage in a plummeting of relations between the US and Iran Well, if people don't know the answers to that, they haven't been paying attention.
Okay.
So what we have here are our situations where The worst news that I saw yesterday was that the head of the CIA Was helping to fill out this plot.
Okay, we mentioned that before but This is very serious because it means that my old colleagues back there are being twisted by Petraeus To say things that they can't possibly believe now that has to do with Iran.
But now let's talk about Afghanistan today.
We have an AP report in which Petraeus is quoted as saying look when you're doing estimates You see I analysts you have to give greater weight to the opinions of troops in the fight We've got to put our drafts before The colonels and the generals on the ground in Afghanistan and know what they think Because they won't be so Pessimistic they won't say this is a feckless exercise or a fool's errand.
They will say guess what they'll say There's quote progress, but it's you know, the rest of it.
It's tentative and it's reversible That's what I say Petraeus says and that's what we'll say So what do we what we have here?
We have a new guy ahead of the as head of The only intelligence agency in our government who has the charter to tell like it is Okay to point out as my colleague did on Iran that they're not working on a nuclear weapon now How are they going to fare if they say look?
General Petraeus, but with all due respect now We have taking it could taken a consistent line for the last five years that Afghanistan is not winnable That there's been no progress not even tentative or reversible progress and we're not going to write anything different What's going to happen to those analysts?
I ask you, you know, Scott.
What do you think will happen to them?
Well, they're gone and all this was obvious the moment that they said they're gonna move them over to CIA's first order business It's going to be to write up a new estimate about what a great job He did with his bogus surge killing people over there They're not raids and their drone strikes and that's accomplished nothing other than kill a bunch of people and create a bunch more enemies to Fight for longer.
Oh, yeah, we can have a new normal.
Okay, the new normal is the long war Yeah, losing forever.
Yeah, Petraeus is on record as saying that our grandchildren are going to be fighting the same war Well, hello, it's great for the defense industries.
It's great for people who want to put another star on their lapel It's terrible for the poor kids.
We send over there to kill and be killed Well now Ray I wonder if you remember or if you noticed back say six months ago or so Philip Weiss Was supplied an email by a reader That David Petraeus had answered him a question about the surge, but he had accidentally Or is about Iran, but he had accidentally Attached his conversation with max boot at the bottom of the email.
Oh, yeah, this is key Yeah, we wrote this up Bob Perry and I wrote this up.
This was Authentic emails we have the texts of them Why because Petraeus is not really all that good at emailing and when he answered this little kudo that was sent to him by a friend Of mine, he said well, okay Thanks, but we're not making a big deal of this now what's that all about the big deal was my friend said thank you very much for pointing out the essential nature of the Arab-israeli dispute and the fact that the Israelis will not show any flexibility in Endangers our troops that was in your testimony.
We thank you general Petraeus So so he gets back to me.
Well, thanks very much for the thought but we're not gonna make a big deal of this and Then attached to the email is this long conversation with max boot?
An arch neoconservative where Petraeus first says max You know that testimony that I gave when I talked about how the Israeli Obstinance is harming our troops, you know I didn't say that that was just in my prepared testimony in the written part But but the blogs are going crazy about this that they're saying that Israel needs to what do we do and max boot says?
Well, that's all right.
I'm writing the article now, which says that you're not anti-semitic and Petraeus is well Well, you know, would it be good good to mention that I had?
Ellie we so over to dinner last night or that I'm going to be a period at a Holocaust Museum next week and I'm not no no, no relax David We got you covered and nobody's calling you and just just lay low This will blow over and you know It betrays does he sends back a little email with a smile face on it the colon and you know One of those close peppers, you know, so this guy is a political animal I'm sure he has his eyes set on what a 2016 okay, and so he's going to be shaving things in a way that you know I've seen some pretty terrible CIA directors, but this guy is off to a terrible start Well, and you know I mean the reason that that anecdote is so important Ray is because you know Obviously on Afghanistan his first order of business is going to be as you know As director of CIA to make his blunders as general in charge look good and all that You can see his direct interest there But why would betray us go along with a war with Iran that so far?
It seems like the Pentagon has had a consensus that they're against What is it with him?
Oh, it's this political interest of his to make nice with the Israel lobby because after all They're the only ones who really want a war with Iran.
Well, that's right And he sees his bread buttered on that side.
He's been very close to neocon max Boot is the worst of the worst.
Okay, he's a guy that wrote the case for American Empire back in 2002 Yeah, so so Petraeus sees his interest to be served by cooperating fully with these people I'm sure he's getting lots of slaps on the back lots of kudos for as Ignatius David Ignatius put it who's another male conservative For turning the implausible story that we've been exposed to into a plausible story, you know It boggles the mind if you're interested in in what I consider to be the the key one of the key flaws in this story I'll repeat this from my friend Ray Ray close who is chief of station Saudi Arabia in the 70s He says now suppose you're an Iranian undercover operative, right?
And you have instructions to hire a killer to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador now why in hell?
Why in hell would you consider it necessary to explain to a presumed the Mexican I won't use the expletive That this murder was planned and would be paid for by a secret organization in Iran Hello whoever conducted this sale Ray continues wanted this plot exposed to precipitate a major crisis in relations between Iran and the United States End of quote we've got the president himself involved now as long as Eric or as well as Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton I fear for what might happen here because the the juggernaut is again in motion and David Petraeus is head of the CIA and Whoever it was that took Poland's place don't have the cachet or the willingness to put a spoke into the wheels of that juggernaut Yeah, well it's interesting, isn't it that I haven't heard much of this guy very close the name sounds familiar But from a long time ago But you know Christopher Ketchum wrote an article a couple of years back for counterpunch that began scratch CIA or an American intelligence agent and they will start telling you about Israeli covert operations inside the United States You know just under the surface of pretty much All of you guys is a bunch of stories about how their interests in our interests are not the same as David Petraeus will admit accidentally on occasion Yeah, there's a very very long history of the Israelis trying to persuade us specifically to go at Iran all manner of Justifications that used in all manner of carrots as well as sticks held out by Israeli Interests and the leak hood lobby in this country So it's not a surprise that this would would be in the works what is a surprise is that they would choose this kind of of phony story as As if nobody's awake That as if the New York Times can be co-opted every single time no matter how flimsy the evidence So let's hope that reason will prevail But Obama Barack Obama is not a courageous person he sees himself as hemmed in by Netanyahu He tells Netanyahu.
Hey, no more settlements, please Netanyahu puts his right thumb to his nose wags his fingers.
That's what he gets from Netanyahu when he asked Netanyahu Please don't shoot up the boats that are coming to Gaza with Dallas Walker and New York Times and and other people on it Netanyahu put his right thumb to his nose and wag his fingers.
That's why That's why Obama had to go to the Greeks and say please please don't let him leave your ports, please I Don't have any guarantee that the Israelis won't do what they did the year before and shoot some of my citizens up and this time It's the US boat, you know, so Suffice it to say that Obama is is regarded by Netanyahu as somebody who's Who can be used in any way that he wants and if he decides Despite the the advice of his military and his former intelligence people There would be good idea to start some sort of armed fracas by provoking Iran I think he's probably and sadly right that Obama would consider he had no no option but to follow the John Brennan's of the world believe what they tell him and Be in there with both feet despite what our military and the Israeli military think about the notion of My god, can you imagine a war with Iran now Ray?
I wonder if in your experience and your knowledge of Israeli covert operations inside and against the United States over the years whether you think it's Plausible or even likely that the Israelis are actually the ones who made up this plot in the first place I think I'm asking you to speculate but I'm calling it that Yeah, well, you know on these kinds of things you have to go on past practice if there weren't such a very long list Precisely this kind of thing, although usually not so clump clumsy It would be pure speculation, but this is speculation based on previous experience I don't like to make judgments except on empirical things But previous experience can be pretty empirical, right?
So yeah, I think it's altogether possible that That the Israelis either have somebody from Mossad within or on the on the sending end of that $100,000 or in some other way they have insinuated themselves into the White House itself with people like John Brennan Eager eager now Brennan, of course was chief of station Saudi Arabia for a while So you can see, you know What his experience is and the Saudis have openly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government So and Phil Giraldi told me early today that the Saudis have been talking to the Israelis directly about persuading the u.s.
To do their bidding and Join an attack on Iran.
So the constellation is all there and I'm not sure that Barack Obama has enough adult advisors to warn him About what Admiral Mike Mullen warned and that is you know, you attack Iran they have all manner of ways to retaliate not least of which is against our troops that remain in Iraq or Afghanistan or Sealing the Strait of Hormuz Denying the world of 30% of their oil and trade.
Hey, we did Bahrain Yeah, or or you know real terrorism like that's concocted terrorism It would probably help probably occur more in Europe or other u.s.
Establishments abroad But you know the Iranians are not Iraq and I'm not sure that anybody is telling a Barack Obama that and you know I feel fine that to be so so stupid because Obama Should be smart enough to realize that he shouldn't have gone with all these inherited folks that have such a record on torture on human rights violations on Prisons and Be that he personally is that bad on all of these issues?
Yeah, you know McGovern has come a long way in the last three years and I'm not there yet.
But you know, that's an alternative Explanation very very well may be true.
It does seem that he's bought this Trickle-down economic theory.
Otherwise, you know, he couldn't possibly be saying the things he's saying.
So maybe you're right Maybe it wasn't internet donations It was Goldman Sachs that bankrolled that last campaign and and this one too.
He ain't gonna raise a billion dollars from nowhere He's gonna run the Treasury actually by way of the military industrial complex in the banks just like last time Well the good news the good news is what's happening in New York At where I'm going in 15 minutes down to Freedom Plaza in Washington Hundreds of us there now on the weekend.
We'll have thousands again, and you know, the people united will not be defeated We are the 99% and that will count for something.
This is new and this is very hopeful Yeah and you know I'll be counting on this whole time is you know the best of the left and the best of the right and the Libertarians all coming together to form a new realignment a new consensus against imperialism against corporate welfare and bailouts for billionaires and against this assault on our Bill of Rights What could be more red white and blue than all of these things?
And and as the crisis gets worse overseas and as the economic crisis gets work gets worse Here at home.
We see the old categories are just falling apart You know people are starting to really realize who's on whose side for a change and in a more accurate way I would say I like I hope you're right.
I see the same thing.
I have trouble Making sure that I'm not just being optimistic But this is new and what needs to be encouraged all your listeners If you're anywhere near Washington come to Freedom Square if you're other where other places go to the local places, San Francisco Los Angeles they all have people that are doing these things these days and that's the way we're going to make an impact All right.
Well, thank you so much for your time and for your writing and all your activism and everything, right?
I really appreciate it.
You're most welcome Scott everybody.
That's Ray McGovern 27 years.
He was a CIA analyst He's a co-founder of veteran intelligence professionals for sanity And he writes at consortium news.com the website of the great Robert Perry.
You can also find his archive at antiwar.com/McGovern
