01/22/14 – Philip Giraldi – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
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Seems like I got quite a few new listeners out of that.
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Alright, so this is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Live here on Liberty Express 3 to 5 Eastern Time, Monday through Friday.
And now our first guest on the show today is Phil Giraldi.
He's a former CIA and DIA officer.
And now he writes for UNZ.com, that's U-N-Z, UNZ.com.
The American Conservative Magazine, as well as AntiWar.com.
Welcome back to the show, Phil.
How are you doing?
I'm fine, Scott.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Appreciate you joining us on the show.
I hope you're staying warm in the snowstorm that they have going on over there in the east.
Well, it's no doubt a part of global warming, but anyway, it's gone the wrong way here.
It's 7 degrees here today.
It couldn't be more beautiful in Austin, Texas right now.
I don't know what's going on.
I don't want to hear that.
So listen, you wrote this really important thing for the American Conservative Magazine that, man, this just blew me away, and I've been talking about it, and in fact I described it wrong on Tom Wood's show, although I tried to make a correction in the YouTube comments there for the archive anyway.
But anyway, it's Intel Community Makes Peace.
And apparently you've been talking to some CIA buds of yours who told you all about what really happened with the back-channel negotiations with the Iranians in Oman under William Burns over the past however many months, while John Kerry and all them are carrying on about trying to get an interim deal and this, that, and the other thing.
You got the real story, so hit me.
Well, basically there's been a deal for a long time.
It's essentially that everybody has understood what the steps had to be to come to an agreement.
And a lot of the stage acting that one saw from Kerry and from the White House and everything like that is basically the theater of politics, essentially trying to work the situation so that it could defuse objections from Congress and keep Congress out of the thing.
And so they were constantly pretending that, you know, this thing was a lot more tense and a lot crazier than it seemed to be.
And meanwhile the intel people were playing a very active role, which is unusual, in this in that they were doing, you know, running studies to show, you know, what if we do this and what happens six months down the road, two years down the road, you know, three years down the road, and giving upside and downside assessments of every step of the process.
So it was actually quite a more positive thing than we have been led to believe.
And also the way it was played out gives one a certain level of respect for how the process worked.
And you're saying that that's really unusual, that you would have, rather than just, you know, the best card players that the State Department brought along, you would bring an entire team of, and I think you say here that this team of CIA analysts, they were working directly for the White House, right, in the National Security Council, and were sent basically to, like, whisper in the ear of William Burns as he's gambling at the table, so to speak, right?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, as I say, they were basically, you know, bench testing every single thing that was being discussed, and they were giving the best judgments on what the upside and downside would be if you did this, and also projecting out, you know, like, for example, if you concede to Iran on this, what could happen as a result in five years?
It was that kind of negotiating back and forth, which, of course, is very intelligent.
It's not the sort of thing we expect from our government.
Yes, certainly not me.
And now, so let's talk about that, because when I was on Tom Wood's show the other day, he asked me about, he wrote a quote from someone saying that, you know, if everything fell apart, that they could weaponize enough uranium for a bomb in just a couple of weeks.
And I was saying I didn't think that was true, and I cited this because I think you say in here that the CIA's estimate would be that it would take them five years to get a nuclear weapon ready?
Yeah, I mean, the thing is, yeah.
That's under the deal.
If they get the deal implemented, then it would take them five years to really break out.
Is that it?
Well, basically, they're saying that, you know, it's a lot more complicated to make a weapon and make it deliverable than it is to weaponize uranium.
That's where the argument kind of, there are two separate arguments here, and that's why the neocons these days keep saying that the breakout capability or the capability to make a weapon is the thing that they're against, because Iran is already there.
And so if you're going to condemn Iran because you don't want them to have the capability, they have it.
But the fact is that to take that uranium and engineer it into a weapon and make it a weapon that actually can be delivered in terms of what capabilities you have in that area is a much more complicated thing.
And this is where the agency analysts were able to lay out, you know, you have to do this, and you have to do this, and you have to do this, and you have to do this.
And we're looking at, you know, anywhere from three to five years in terms of how long it would take to do that, even if you went out, you know, 100 percent in pursuit of that.
And, of course, then you have other factors that come in, like the Israelis and the Americans have been sabotaging their technologies, have been getting into their systems, have been assassinating their scientists.
So, you know, there are other things that militate against even that timetable.
Yeah, I mean, when it comes down to, and this is, you know, I'm obviously not the expert about this, but I do know Doc Prather, and, you know, Gordon says that you can make a gun-type nuke, which is relatively simple.
They didn't even test the Hiroshima bomb.
They knew it would work.
And you could make a bomb like that, but it's going to be big and heavy, and basically impossible to do anything with from the point of view of the Iranian state other than just to sit on.
And then an implosion bomb is like, this is why the North Koreans' bombs always fizzle, is because it's really, really hard to do an implosion nuke, which would be the kind that you would have to make if it was going to be small enough that you could lob it at anything.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, you make one of these big two-ton bombs, and all you can do is blow yourself up with it.
And the whole process of turning something into a weapon, and a weapon that you can actually deliver on a target, is a lot more complicated.
And essentially that's what the analysts were kind of projecting and playing with to make the case that, okay, if we concede on this, that's not necessarily the end of the story.
There are other ways that you can moderate the result of this that would change the timetable.
And they've been of the opinion, just like with Iraq, right?
This is what it said in the NIE of 2002, even though it accused Iraq of having chemical weapons.
It said, we judged that he would never use them against us unless we attacked him first, and he might use them to defend Baghdad, which was wrong.
He didn't even have them, and didn't use them to defend Baghdad because he didn't have them to defend Baghdad with, but maybe he would have.
But that's kind of the same thing here, right?
Is that they can tell, just as much as anybody, that the Iranians don't have any intent of going beyond the merest capability.
Apparently they're willing to negotiate all but the merest capability.
And the thinking on this side has always been, I mean, among the honest people, is that they wouldn't break out for a nuke unless we bombed them first anyway, right?
And only then would they go as far as withdrawing from the treaty and attempting to make a nuke, because they would feel like they had no other choice at that point.
Yeah, I think it's reasonable to say, based on Iranian behavior over the last 10 years, that they essentially are not looking for a weapon in any offensive way.
The only arguments that you hear in Iran, in their media, and among their politicians for having a weapons program is purely defensive.
And what you're saying is exactly right.
If you want to guarantee that they develop a nuclear weapon, you keep up with the constant threats and you keep up with increasing the sanctions, which Congress seems intent on doing, and that sort of thing.
I mean, the logic of the whole policy vis-à-vis Iran and its nuclear program has been passed backwards.
It's upside down.
And it's just incredible.
But that said, the piece I did demonstrates that there are people in the government who aren't crazy, who kind of know what's going on, and occasionally a kind of a sensible solution can surface.
You know, I almost wondered whether, when I read your article, whether it would have been better held a little closer to your vest there.
What if the Weekly Standard guys get a hold of this, that they already really have the final deal and they're going to let them keep enrichment, and they've got months to try to freak out over that?
Well, first of all, I mean, the Weekly Standard guys are going to write what they want to write anyway.
Whether they've ever even heard of such information before or not, they're going to write whatever they feel like.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean, their point of view is essentially that Iran is now and will forever be the enemy, and it really doesn't make any difference what kind of arguments you make.
So the fact is, yeah, if they see this, obviously, and I assume somebody over there might have read it, you better believe that they're putting pressure on congressmen and others to move ahead with more stringent sanctions to forestall this kind of thing, to forestall any kind of understanding.
Yeah.
Well, you're certainly right that it makes no sense to keep things going the way it is, and it makes perfect sense for Obama, because really, I mean, he can just, you know, fold his arms and, you know, it's like the Leveretts say, this is like pretending that the government of Taiwan is still the legit government of mainland China.
Like, at some point, you have to give it up.
You know, they're independent.
So tough.
And that's really what recognizing their civilian enrichment program is, is saying that, you know, recognizing their independence from our empire, which, you know, not that they're China, but they're sort of a middle-of-the-road power state or could be one day and whatever.
I don't think it's asking too much for us to respect that.
And I think Obama, apparently, he's decided that, you know what, enough of this.
Yeah, that's basically what I was told.
I mean, to me, that was the most interesting part of the story, that Obama really has decided to do this.
It doesn't mean that he's not going to get derailed by somebody or something, but the fact is, you know, throughout this whole process, Obama and presumably Kerry were on the same page.
They were going to get this done.
And so that was, to me, kind of a nice thing to hear for a change.
Because, you know, we don't hear too many nice things too often.
Right.
Well, you know, yeah, I mean, I just was finally coming around to this point of view that he really means to see it through, really, I guess, just in the last week or two when he called these congressmen and senators to the White House to tell them to their face that, listen, I mean it, don't do this, okay?
And you had Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Dianne Feinstein and a lot of very hardcore Likudnik party line-toeing people who, in this case, are President Obama party line-toeing people.
And I think he really called in either he just, you know, stood a lot taller over them than they're used to people standing, as he said it, or he called in favors or blackmailed them or what he did.
But he seemed to have really twisted some arms to make them change their plan there on the sanctions.
Yeah, well, he still could be overruled by action by Congress.
We all know that.
And it's apparently very close to the people like Lindsey Graham and Schumer are very close to having those numbers.
Yeah, and Hillary said, you know, the AIPAC conference is still coming up.
We'll be right back with Phil Giraldi in just a second.
Hey, y'all, Scott here.
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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
And sorry about that, Phil.
You know how it is with these hard commercial breaks here.
You were interrupted talking about, well, the power of the lobby and its allies on Capitol Hill.
I tried to cram in a mention there at the end about Hillary Mann-Leverett mentioned to me on the show the other day that, yeah, the AIPAC convention is coming up, what, in March?
And it's going to be, you know, it's like focusing the power of the lobby through a magnifying glass or something like that.
Pretty powerful.
Hard to resist.
I don't know.
I guess do you want to finish up along those lines or do you want to change the subject because I've got plenty.
Was that a question or an observation?
Well, that was where I interrupted you because we had to take the break was just about the power of the lobby.
And I don't know if you had anything else to say about it or not, I guess.
That's the question.
Well, I mean, not particularly.
I'm finding quite amusing, you know, some of the coverage of what's going on about, you know, like Kirkman Endes and other things in Congress because depending on where you go, you see that people don't want to talk about the lobby.
And I noticed even though we're at American Conservative where I write, we've had a whole series of articles by Jim Antle on Kirkman Endes, and he never once mentions the Israel lobby.
It's like let's call it something else that people that are noble congressmen are interested in, are dubious about negotiations with Iran.
Well, why are they dubious about negotiations with Iran?
Because they have the Israel lobby sitting on their shoulders.
And, you know, it's funny.
There's kind of blindness that goes on about discussing the issue.
Everybody doesn't want to confront it, or not everybody wants to confront it.
And Israel lobby is driving this.
There is no other reason for the United States not to come to an understanding with Iran.
No other reason on earth.
I just read online that there are airplane loads of executives from France, Germany, and Britain arriving in Tehran daily to cut deals now that the sanctions are over.
Everybody realizes this is a rich country, potentially a rich country, with a big market and people that we can deal with, basically.
Everybody seems to understand it except the U.S. Congress.
Right.
And, you know, it's funny too because it's almost, you know, where if you put it in a movie it would seem like a cheesy script.
It can't be this simple.
But the way Jim Loeb wrote about it at the Loeb blog was the senators and the congressmen who are paid by AIPAC the most are the ones who proposed this thing and signed up for it first.
Like, in order, to the dollar sign, without exceptions.
You would think that there would be some ideological motivation revealed in there somewhere or something.
But no, it's pure, like, the more bribed by the Israelis they are, the more they want to do this thing like a perfect graph, you know?
Yeah, sure.
And then, as I say, some people don't want to mention it because they don't want to offend somebody.
I don't know, I'm saying that, but I don't even know what the reason could be.
I mean, if it's so obvious that the Israel lobby is the force behind this, why are we talking about anything else?
Well, yeah, and especially when...
I mean, the truth of that really has broken through a lot of places where they really don't care.
They'll go ahead and admit it, right?
Like, I don't know, a BuzzFeed or some crap.
You can come across that knowledge that that's who's really behind this if you read The Hill or this or that, but then you're right.
In these other places, it's completely a black hole.
Where, oh no, don't say that.
That's like calling them black or something.
Yeah, yeah, and it was actually on YouTube.
Even Jane Harman admitted that it was the Israel lobby that was behind this from the Wilson Foundation, and that really blew me away.
So, I mean, it's out there, and if the United States government wants to go to war with Iran because the Israel lobby wants it, let's just talk about it.
If there are so many crazies in the United States that they want to do this, okay, fine, I'll move to some place, I guess Ecuador.
But the fact is, if that's what the public in the United States really wants, we should have a legitimate and open discussion about what this means.
Well, and of course, they deny all along that they're even trying to sabotage the deal.
They claim that they're doing these sanctions or trying to pass these sanctions because they just really want to help Obama a lot.
More than he wants to be helped, apparently.
Yeah, that's right.
The whole idea that more sanctions, if they came to the table because of sanctions, I'm sure you saw the Jon Stewart bit.
They came to the table because of sanctions.
If you give them more sanctions, they'll get closer to the table.
They'll be leaning on the table or underneath it.
The whole thing is ridiculous.
Yeah, it is.
It's out of line.
Well, anyway, it's not a done deal all the way.
We talked about this, I think, back in November, that, man, six months is a long time to give Netanyahu a chance to ruin this thing.
I guess we'll see what happens.
But it sure is, again, back to the headline here.
Phil's CIA buds say they got pretty much a done deal worked out with those back-channel talks there.
We're just buying the time until the politicians catch up with the photo ops and all that.
Did you see what Robert Gates apparently said about Netanyahu in his book?
Yeah, yeah, from in the Bush senior years?
Yeah, where he said that the first time he met Netanyahu, he turned to, I don't remember who it was.
Scowcroft.
Yeah, Scowcroft, right.
He said, basically, that man should never be allowed to come back into the White House.
I wish that someone would follow up and ask him, what was it that he did or said?
You caught him stealing stuff at the White House that day?
Probably stole the silver that he got to it before the Clintons did.
Man, I wouldn't doubt that.
That guy caught him rifling through some files or something.
Right, exactly.
All right, so now, you've written a lot of great pieces lately, and I think the one that I would like to provoke you into telling the people about it would be, We Told You So, about the war on terrorism.
I was telling my buddy earlier that if Ray McGovern tells you that, hey, the war on terror doesn't have to be this way or whatever, well, that's great, and he's really smart.
He always has a really great argument.
But he's sort of a singing kumbaya kind of a guy in the first place sort of thing.
You might expect him to talk like that.
His voice even sounds like that.
But you write for the American Conservative, and you're not an analyst.
You're an actual former CIA covert operative guy out there, station chief of this or that city or whatever the hell, and been out there in real life, and at least in a former life, more nationalist than you are now.
Anyway, it seems like you can just speak in a language that right-wingers can understand about this terror war and whether or not it really has to be like this.
In fact, this article is celebrating the fact that you tried to tell us that it doesn't have to be like this back 10 years ago, and here we still are.
Yeah.
Basically, I described how the first article I wrote for the American Conservative about a year after I had left the CIA was called The Jihadi War, and it was explaining basically, look, you've let the genie out of the bottle with all this stuff.
You're creating kind of a third way in terms of terrorism becoming legitimized and attracting recruits and stuff like that, and you're not going to be able to put the cork back in.
And essentially I was saying, gee, it's 10 years later, and of course I underestimated how bad it would get, and essentially I never foresaw that we would have what we're seeing today in Syria and Iraq in particular, but you can throw in a bunch of other countries too.
So, you know, it's like, gee, I saw it, and I'm not a genius, and a lot of other people like yourself, and in fact it was shortly thereafter I started appearing on Anti-War and talking to you, and we all saw what was coming.
But why didn't these smart guys in Washington see it?
And I basically said, look, the fact is that these guys are into perception management in terms of what they're doing.
They don't care about what the facts are, and they're essentially locked into a two-year political cycle.
There are elections every two years, so they're always anticipating how they play these stories and how they play developments in terms of the electoral cycle.
So they're not looking at things the way we look at it, and I was saying, gee, it's too bad that the rest of us who kind of saw these things very clearly weren't listened to.
Well, as always, so here, nobody's listening to this either.
Go ahead and tell us.
You told me the first time I interviewed you back in 2005, I asked you about what to do then, and you said ramp this whole thing down.
So now my question is, is it maybe too late?
They didn't ramp it down soon enough, and now they spread jihad so far and wide that maybe now we've got to start day one of the terror war all over again and do something to limit how many crazy jihadi suicide bombers there are in the world?
I'm trying to be a devil's advocate.
I think the key to a lot of this is for the U.S. to basically adopt a non-interventionist policy and make it stick.
And once there is a clear perception that the United States is not going to be meddling around in these places and doing things, the people in these countries are going to have to figure out how to work out their political systems, how to work out the differences that they have, and they will do it.
But the fact is the United States has been the catalyst for a lot of this stuff.
I think that's the only solution now.
I think it's a tragedy that the United States is incapable any longer of playing a positive role in the world, but that's the way it is.
So I think the best thing to do is to go cold turkey.
If we could do like a big moratorium on wars for a while, maybe after a few years into that we could start sending diplomats out to try to help others iron out their differences a little bit.
Not by paying them all $3 billion a year from our end or anything.
That's right.
Help negotiate.
Anyway.
All right.
Well, thanks very much for your time.
It's always good to talk to you, Phil.
Okay, Scott.
Next time I'm going to ask you about Russia and Prince Bandar and things.
So write about that.
Don't worry about things you can't control.
Isn't that what they always say?
But it's about impossible to avoid worrying about what's going on these days.
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What was the only interest group in D.C. pushing war with Syria last summer?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby.
What's the only interest group in D.C. pushing to sabotage the nuclear deal with Iran right now?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby.
Why doesn't the president force an end to the occupation of Palestine, a leading cause of terrorist attacks against the United States?
AIPAC and the Israel lobby.
The Council for the National Interest is pushing back, putting America first and educating the people about what's really at stake in the Middle East.
Help support their important work at councilforthenationalinterest.org.