[Kzyxtalk] CIA Restructuring -- at KMEC Radio, Monday, March 23 at 1 p.m., Pacific Time

[sako4 at comcast.net]

**** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE **** 

On Monday, March 23, at 1 p.m., Pacific Time, KMEC Radio is pleased to bring you Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East at the National Intelligence Council. We'll talk about CIA Director John Brennan's new plan to restructure the CIA. 

Ms. Murray retired after a distinguished 27-year career in national security and intelligence. She specialized in Middle East political and media analysis. Murray is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). See: http://warisacrime.org/vips 

KMEC RADIO 

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As a quick footnote, please mark your calendar for a special show at KMEC Radio with NSA whistleblower, Tom Drake, on Thursday, April 2, at 10 AM, Pacific Time. 


HOW CIA DIRECTOR BRENNAN'S PLAN FACILITATES FUTURE WARS BASED ON LIES 


Last Friday afternoon -- when stories on Fridays are typically put out to avoid scrutiny by mainstream media -- a plan by CIA head John Brennan to restructure the agency was made public. Much of the major media portrayed it as a reform to make Americans safer: The New York Times headline read: "CIA to Be Overhauled to Fight Modern Threats." However, many CIA veterans argue that it is a step toward further politicization of intelligence. 


ELIZABETH MURRAY 

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. 

WHAT MURRAY HAS TO SAY ABOUT BRENNAN'S PLAN 

Murray is among the signers to a just released, posted at ConsortiumNews.com : " U.S. Intel Vets Oppose Brennan’s Plan to Restructure CIA ," which takes the form of a memo to the President: "Mr. President, The CIA reorganization plan announced by Director John Brennan on Friday is a potentially deadly blow to the objective, fact-based intelligence needed to support fully informed decisions on foreign policy. We suggest turning this danger into an opportunity to create an independent entity for CIA intelligence analysis immune from the operational demands of the 'war on terror.' 

"On Feb. 5, 2003, immediately after Colin Powell’s address to the UN, members of VIPS sent our first VIPS memorandum, urging President George W. Bush to widen the policy debate 'beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.' 

"The 'former senior officers' whom Brennan asked for input on the restructuring plan are a similar closed, blinkered circle, as is the 'outstanding group of officers from across the Agency' picked by Brennan to look at the Agency’s mission and future. He did not include any of the intelligence community dissidents and alumni who fought against the disastrous politicization of intelligence before the attack on Iraq. Nor does Brennan’s plan reflect the lessons learned from that debacle. ... 

"President Harry Truman wanted an agency structure able to meet a president’s need for 'the most accurate ... information on what’s going on everywhere in the world, and particularly of the trends and developments in all the danger spots.' In an op-ed appearing in the Washington Post exactly one month after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Truman added, 'I have been disturbed by ... the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment … and has become an operational and at times policy-making arm of the Government.' ... 

"You are fully aware, we trust, that our analysts’ vaunted ethos of speaking unvarnished truth to power was corrupted by Director George Tenet and Deputy Director John McLaughlin, who outdid themselves in carrying out the instructions of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. The new ethos boiled down to this: If the President wants to paint Iraq as a strategic threat, it is our job to come up with the 'evidence' -- even if it needs to be manufactured out of whole cloth (or forged, as in 'yellowcake uranium from Africa' caper). ... 

"There is hope to be drawn from those occasions where senior intelligence officials with integrity can step in, show courageous example, and -- despite multiple indignities and pitfalls in the system -- can force the truth to the surface. We hope that you have been made aware that, after the no-WMD-anywhere debacle on Iraq, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence Thomas Fingar did precisely that during 2007, supervising a watershed National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that concluded unanimously, 'with high confidence,' that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003. 

"President Bush concedes in his memoir that this put the kibosh on his and Dick Cheney’s earlier plan to attack Iran during their last year in office. So, character (as in Fingar) counts, and people of integrity can make a difference -- and even help thwart plans for war -- even in the most politicized of circumstances." 




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