Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), formed in January 2003 "to speak out on the use of intelligence to justify the war," is "a coast-to-coast enterprise; mostly intelligence officers from analysis side of CIA, but Operations side also represented. "

VIPS Steering Group


 * Kathleen McGrath Christison, Santa Fe, NM
 * William Christison, Santa Fe, NM
 * David MacMichael, Linden, VA
 * Raymond McGovern, Arlington, VA
 * Richard Beske, San Diego, CA
 * Patrick G. Eddington, Alexandria, VA

Other Alleged VIPS Members


 * Eugene Betit
 * Ray Close
 * Larry Johnson

Correspondence


 * 7 February 2003: VIPS MEMORANDUM sent to President George Walker Bush (published in Common Dreams).
 * 15 February 2003: VIPS: "CIA says NO. U.S. Intelligence Officers Say Bush Out of His Mind on Iraq War" by Ray McGovern for NowToronto.com.
 * 16 March 2003: VIPS MEMORANDUM: "Memorandum for Confused Americans. Cooking Intelligence for War" posted at LI Politics Message Board Forum by Ray McGovern: Appended and translated March 6, 2003, transcript from German Channel One's Panorama interview with former CIA officers, including Ray McGovern and David MacMichael, "to discuss the use/abuse of intelligence to support the US administration's case for attacking Iraq."
 * 18 March 2003: VIPS "Memo to the President: Forgery, Hyperbole, Half-Truth: A Problem" posted Timothy D. O'Hare on March 20, 2003 -- "Veteran US Spooks Strongly Doubt Bush's Iraq Case" -- at ForeignPolicy.com.
 * 26 April 2003: VIPS Memorandum: "The Stakes in the Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction" by David MacMichael and Ray McGovern; "Weapons of Mass Distraction: Where? Find? Plant?" in Scoop.
 * 1 May 2003: "Intelligence Officers Challenge Bush" - VIPS Memorandum for the President: "Intelligence Fiasco" at BNfP.org; Also.
 * 17 May 2003: "The Moment of Lies Has Arrived" by Hwaa Irfan, Staff Writer, IslamOnline: VIPS credited with bringing "to light" the forged Iraqi documents that were "supposed to provide evidence for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
 * 19 May 2003: VIPS Letter sent via fax to Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations: "We Are Perplexed at the US Refusal to Permit the Return of UN Inspectors to Iraq" (published in Dissident Voice, May 21, 2003). Also at Truthout.
 * 25 May 2003: VIPS: Opinion: "U.N. needs inspectors to return to Iraq", Birmingham News.
 * 14 July 2003: "Cheney Must Go", an open letter to Pres. Bush published by Salon.com.

News Stories


 * 14 March 2003: "Ex-CIA Officers Defy Bush Administration" by John J. Lumpkin, Associated Press Writer.
 * 17 March 2003: "Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence", AP: "The 25-member group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, composed mostly of former CIA analysts along with a few operational agents, is urging employees inside the intelligence agency to break the law and leak any information they have that could show the Bush administration is engineering the release of evidence to match its penchant for war."
 * 22 March 2003: "CIA Officials Doubted Documents Linking Iraq to Efforts to Purchase Uranium from Niger" and communicated those doubts to the Bush Administration, reports the Washington Post, but President Bush nevertheless cited the allegations in his State of the Union address.
 * 4 April 2003: "Some worry U.S. may bend facts for policy", SunSpot.net(cached article).
 * 18 April 2003: "US should be 'embarrassed' over failure to find WMDs: ex-spies", AFP.
 * 18 April 2003: "Former CIA Agents: Not Finding WMD in Iraq, Embarrassing to US" by Republicons Staff.
 * 26 May 2003: "CIA: Sinned Against or Sinning?" by B. Raman, South Asia Analysis Group. Items 17 and 18 re VIPS in particular.
 * 30 May 2003: "Save Our Spooks" by Nicholas D. Kristof, Op-ed columnist, The New York Times.
 * 1 June 2003: "US security men accuse Bush of twisting facts," The International News (Pakistan).
 * 3 June 2003: "Story: Ray McGovern of Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Analyzes Private Conversatino Between Powell and Straw Regarding Iraq's WMDs"; "live" interview with Pacifica's Peacewatch: "Peacewatch talked with Ray McGovern, a 27-year CIA veteran and a member of the steering committee of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity or VIPS. McGovern served as an "All Intelligence Agent" during the Reagan White House."
 * 10 June 2003: "Intelligence questions" by Peter H. Stone, National Journal: DCI George J. Tenet "...in a written statement defended intelligence on Iraq, saying that the 'integrity of our process was maintained throughout, and any suggestion to the contrary is simply wrong.' ... Tenet's statement came in response to a memo written to Bush, and posted on some Internet sites, by a group of retired CIA and State analysts known as Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity."
 * 23 June 2003: "Will Heads Roll over Faulty Intelligence about Iraq?" in Business Week Onlin, Richard S. Durham, Ed.: "Tenet, a holdover from the William Jefferson Clinton Administration, is caught in the crossfire. 'Most of my colleagues think it's only a matter of time before Tenet is fired,' says Raymond McGovern."
 * 2 July 2003: "Veteran Intelligence Professional Ray McGovern: Bush administratiion slanted evidence prior to war"; live interview: "In this commentary for Peace Watch Ray McGovern points to an unusual pattern on the part of Vice President Dick Cheney to visit the CIA headquarters, which he did 27 times prior to the invasion."
 * 23 June 2003: "Washington Lied: An Interview with Ray McGovern," Counterpunch.com
 * 15 July 2003: "Why We Resigned from VIPS. It's About Policies, Not Personalities" by Kathleen and Bill Christison, CounterPunch.
 * 12 April 2004: "Decoding the PDB" by Larry Johnson, TomPaine.com.
 * 29 June 2004: "CIA According to Anonymous: New Book Reflects Analyst Outrage," by Ray McGovern, Counterpunch.com.

Extracted from Silence Is  Unacceptable by M. Steven Kenniston, The Modern Tribune, March 30, 2003.

"In the months preceding war our President flatly refused to grant an audience to any anti-war organization, including Veterans for Common Sense, Veterans for Peace, and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Many of the men and women in these groups have experienced the horror of war first-hand and have commanded troops and served their country with dedication and valor.  Yet when they sought to voice their concerns that the terrible costs of this war and its potentially disastrous consequences were not justified, they were rebuffed.  Our President chose instead to listen to the counsel of a group of reactionary ideologues recruited from neo-conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century.  These arrogant and authoritative men advocate the use of military force as an acceptable political tool to achieve their goal of a New World Order dominated by American military and economic interests. They identified Iraq as a military target with the goal of regime change years before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. These men crafted the foreign policy behind the President's belligerent rhetoric, which sabotaged any hope of a diplomatic solution or possibility of building a broad coalition of nations. Saying that you're either with us or you're against us and that we are prepared to act unilaterally and preemptively doesn't leave much room for debate."

Contact
Ray McGovern at: rmcgovern@slschool.org" or vips@counterpunch.org

Other Related SourceWatch Resources

 * cooked intelligence
 * media control