{"id":36342,"date":"2018-08-01T10:17:05","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T15:17:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36342"},"modified":"2018-08-01T10:17:05","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T15:17:05","slug":"vips-to-trump-intel-on-iran-could-be-catastrophic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36342","title":{"rendered":"VIPS to Trump: \u00a0Intel on Iran Could be CATASTROPHIC"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2018\/08\/01\/vips-to-trump-intel-on-iran-could-be-catastrophic\/\">VIPS to Trump: \u00a0Intel on Iran Could be CATASTROPHIC<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p><strong>As drums beat again for war \u2014 this time on Iran\u2014-the VIPS\u2019 warning is again being disregarded as it was before the Iraq debacle and\u00a0this\u00a0time VIPS fear the consequences will be all-caps CATASTROPHIC.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"more-29295\"><\/span><b>MEMORANDUM FOR:<\/b>\u00a0The President<\/p>\n<p><b>FROM:\u00a0<\/b>Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)<br \/>\n<b><br \/>\nSUBJECT:\u00a0<\/b>Intelligence on Iran Fails the Smell Test<\/p>\n<p>Mr. President:<\/p>\n<p>As the George W. Bush administration revved up to attack Iraq 15 years ago, we could see no compelling reason for war.\u00a0 We decided, though, to give President Bush the benefit of the doubt on the chance he had been sandbagged by Vice President Dick Cheney and others.\u00a0 We chose to allow for the possibility that he actually believed the \u201cintelligence\u201d that Colin Powell presented to the UN as providing \u201cirrefutable and undeniable\u201d proof of WMD in Iraq and a \u201csinister nexus\u201d between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.<\/p>\n<p>To us in VIPS it was clear, however, that the \u201cintelligence\u201d Powell adduced was bogus.\u00a0 Thus, that same afternoon (Feb. 5, 2003) we prepared and sent to President Bush a Memorandum like this <a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2003\/02\/05\/powells-un-speech-and-the-case-for-war\/%C2%A0\">one<\/a>, urging him to seek counsel beyond the \u201ccircle 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>We take no satisfaction at having been correct \u2014 though disregarded \u2014 in predicting the political and humanitarian disaster in Iraq. Most Americans have been told the intelligence was \u201cmistaken.\u201d It was not; it was out-and-out fraud, in which, sadly, some of our former colleagues took part.<\/p>\n<p>Five years after Powell\u2019s speech, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee minced few words in announcing the main bipartisan finding of a five-year investigation. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligence.senate.gov\/press\/senate-intelligence-committee-unveils-final-phase-ii-reports-prewar-iraq-intelligence\">said<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cIn making the case for war, the Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VIPS to Trump: \u00a0Intel on Iran Could be CATASTROPHIC As drums beat again for war \u2014 this time on Iran\u2014-the VIPS\u2019 warning is again being disregarded as it was before the Iraq debacle and\u00a0this\u00a0time VIPS fear the consequences will be all-caps CATASTROPHIC.\u00a0 MEMORANDUM FOR:\u00a0The President FROM:\u00a0Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT:\u00a0Intelligence on Iran Fails [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[6963,7844,441,5906,21058,21057,21059],"class_list":["post-36342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-consortium-news","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-us-intelligence","tag-veteran-intelligence-professionals-for-sanity","tag-vips","tag-wardrums"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36343,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36342\/revisions\/36343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}