Thomas G. McInerney

Thomas G. McInerney is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and senior military analyst for Fox News. He retired on July 1, 1994 after serving as assistant vice chief of staff, Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. where he was "responsible for the organization and administration of the Air Staff" and also served as "deputy chairman of the Air Force Council and is the Air Force accreditation official for the Air Attache Corps."

After retiring from the Air Force McInerney was Vice President of Command and Control for Loral Defense Systems-Eagan and in 1994 joined Loral, which was then Unisys Electronic Systems Division. A biogrpahical note states that "from March 1996, to December 1999, he was Chief Executive Officer and President of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a national, nonpartisan organization of business and professional leaders, with headquarters in Washington, DC. BENS works to engage the business community in securing America’s future with a more efficient defense establishment."

From 1994, McInerney was Director of the Defense Performance Review (DPR), reporting to the Secretary of Defense. In that capacity, he led the Pentagon’s “reinventing government” effort, reducing government payrolls by contracting out work to private companies.

His biographical note states that in January 2000 he "established his own consulting firm, GRTT (Government Reform Through Technology). Working with high-tech companies who do business with federal, state, city and local governments, GRRT helps them introduce advanced technology into the public sector."

The Pentagon's military analyst program
In April 2008 documents obtained by New York Times reporter David Barstow revealed that McInerney had been recruited as one of over 75 retired military officers involved in the Pentagon military analyst program. Participants appeared on television and radio news shows as military analysts, and/or penned newspaper op/ed columns. The program was launched in early 2002 by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit "key influentials" to help sell a wary public on "a possible Iraq invasion."

Promoting the "good terrorists"
Philip Giraldi, the former CIA officer, states:
 * In August 2011, Rep. Ted Poe of Texas struck a similar note, referring to the MEK as “freedom fighters,” the only “real” opposition to the government in Tehran. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney advocates delisting the group so it can undertake “provocative actions” against Iran, which he describes as killing Iranians if and when they kill Americans. So the objective for some MEK supporters clearly seems to be to give a pass to a terrorist group and to even encourage it to undertake violent action, as long as it is “our” terrorist group attacking people that we consider the bad guys.

Other affiliations

 * The Intelligence Summit 2007
 * Director of NetStar Systems
 * Member of the Iran Policy Committee
 * Advisory Board, American Center for Democracy
 * Thomas McInerney and Paul Vallely, Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror, Regnery Publishing, February 1, 2004

Quotes
McInerney was quoted in the July 11, 2003, Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal:


 * The Bush administration may already have hard evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that it is not sharing with the public, said Lt.-Gen. (ret.) Thomas McInerney, a military commentator for Fox News, reports the Jerusalem Post:
 * "The administration is willing to take the heat for now," McInerney yesterday told The Jerusalem Post, "then release the information next August." Doing so would put the Democrats who have been critical of the US president's policy on Iraq at a distinct disadvange [sic] in the run-up to the presidential election in November 2004.

On the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" on April 12, 2006:
 * "It was a brilliant campaign done in 21 days, very similar to the campaign that [Maj.] General [Paul] Vallely and I laid out a year before. And I can lay out a campaign today that will take Iran down very quickly. We'll do it a different way. But the fact is, we have lots of capability. We are not pinned down in Iraq, despite what people think. We are not pinned down there."

On the Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor" on June 20, 2006:
 * "We can't lose over there militarily. It's the will of the American people. And I call them 'ACE' Democrats or 'ACE' liberals -- aid and comforting the enemy."

SourceWatch resources

 * Covert propaganda
 * Donald H. Rumsfeld
 * Psyops
 * Bush administration smear campaigns
 * Crescent Technology Ventures PLC
 * Swiftboating Joseph Wilson