[Mb-civic] Robert Scheer: Top Spy ¹ s Story on Prewar Intel Is Finally Told

Wed Apr 26 11:13:51 PDT 2006

Truthdig

Robert Scheer: Top Spy¹s Story on Prewar Intel Is Finally Told
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_prewar_intel_iraq_iran/
Posted on Apr. 25, 2006

By Robert Scheer

³The policy was set. The war in Iraq was coming and they were looking for
intelligence to fit into the policy.²
‹Tyler Drumheller, formerly CIA¹s top spy in Europe

Confession time: In fall 2004, during a crucial presidential election
campaign, I made the mistake of playing by corporate media rules that amount
to self-censorship.

Specifically, I joined other journalists in denying the public the right to
learn of a definitive investigative report by CBS¹ ³60 Minutes² on President
Bush¹s disregard for the truth concerning the weapons-of-mass-destruction
threat allegedly posed to the United States by Iraq. Having received an
advance copy of the devastating segment, I honored CBS¹ proprietary request
not to write about the news it carried until after it aired.

Only, it never aired. CBS got cold feet, probably because of Dan Rather¹s
troubles over an unrelated story critical of the president. The suppressed
story was solidly reported and, by exposing the Bush administration¹s utter
disregard for the truth concerning Saddam Hussein¹s weapons of mass
destruction, should have been made available to the public before the
November election. Now, no one seems to care.

The segment finally aired this past Sunday, in a more robust form.
Unfortunately, the response has been tepid; it seems the media, at least,
have become jaded with all the endless examples of the president¹s perfidy.
But the CBS story remains very important as further evidence of the depths
of the Bush administration¹s deception.

Perhaps most damning is an interview, added for the broadcast version, with
Tyler Drumheller, a CIA veteran of 26 years¹ service who was the agency¹s
top spy in Europe until his retirement a year ago. According to him, before
the war Hussein¹s foreign minister had been ³turned² and was talking
secretly to U.S. intelligence. At first excited by this rare inside look at
Hussein¹s regime, the top dogs at the White House dropped the issue like a
hot rock as soon as his information contradicted their overheated rationale
for ³preemptive² war. ³The policy was set,² Drumheller told CBS
correspondent Ed Bradley. ³The war in Iraq was coming. And they were looking
for intelligence to fit into the policy, to justify the policy.²

That¹s how more than three years later, after at least two major
governmental investigations into prewar intelligence on Iraq and countless
journalistic post-mortems, we are only just now finding out that a highly
placed double agent in Iraq was poking a huge hole in the
Hussein-as-WMD-bogeyman story.

³They were enthusiastic² at first, said Drumheller, ³that we had a
high-level penetration of Iraqis.² CIA Director George Tenet reported the
news that Hussein¹s foreign minister, Naji Sabri, was working covertly for
the United States to a White House meeting attended by President Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Their initial
enthusiasm, Drumheller says, quickly turned to cold indifference when Sabri
told them the opposite of what they wanted to hear.

³He told us that they had no active weapons-of-mass-destruction program,²
said the ex-CIA official. ³The [White House] group that was dealing with
preparation for the Iraq war came back and said they were no longer
interested. And we said ŒWell, what about the intel?¹ And they said ŒWell,
this isn¹t about intel anymore. This is about regime change.¹ ²

The White House refused to comment for the ³60 Minutes² report, but CBS
noted that Rice has said Sabri was just one source, and therefore not
reliable. It was ironic, considering how heavily the Bush administration
relied on the now infamous Iraqi defector ³Curveball,² whose statements so
informed the main administration allegations concerning Iraq¹s biochemical
weapons.

Drumheller was in contact with the German intelligence agency CIS, which had
detained the man with the apt code name, and says he himself informed the
top CIA officials that Curveball was an outright fraud.

³They certainly took information that came from single sources on the
yellowcake story and on several other stories with no corroboration at all,²
Drumheller said.

No wonder this man, who risked his life gathering intelligence for our
country, has become a critic of the Bush administration. He is clearly
unwilling to allow what the president has described as a permanent war to
destroy our democracy. True patriotism is not the blind acceptance of
presidential deceit.

Imperial ambition turns truth-tellers into enemies, by default, because
their goal is not the exaltation of the leader¹s power. No wonder so many
national security professionals, be they top generals or intelligence
officials, have gone public recently to denounce how the Iraq war has been
sold and fought: The Bush administration¹s willful ignorance and
buck-passing mock their dedicated service to the nation.

³It just sticks in my craw every time I hear them say it¹s an intelligence
failure,² Drumheller said. ³This was a policy failure.²