Intelligence Veterans warn of risk of US - Iran conflict based on false pretexts

As President Donald Trump prepares to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week, a group of U.S. intelligence veterans offers corrections to a number of false accusations that have been leveled against Iran.

by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: War With Iran

Part 5 – Getting Snookered Into War

We believe that the mounting Iran hysteria evident in the U.S. media and reflected in Beltway groupthink has largely been generated by Saudi Arabia and Israel, who nurture their own aspirations for regional political and military supremacy. There are no actual American vital interests at stake and it is past time to pause and take a step backwards to consider what those interests actually are in a region that has seen nothing but disaster since 2003. Countering an assumed Iranian threat that is minimal and triggering a war would be catastrophic and would exacerbate instability, likely leading to a breakdown in the current political alignment of the entire Middle East. It would be costly for the United States.

Iran is not militarily formidable, but its ability to fight on the defensive against U.S. naval and air forces is considerable and can cause high casualties. There appears to be a perception in the Defense Department that Iran could be defeated in a matter of days, but we would warn that such predictions tend to be based on overly optimistic projections, witness the outcomes in Afghanistan and Iraq. In addition, Tehran would be able again to unleash terrorist resources throughout the region, endangering U.S. military and diplomats based there as well as American travelers and businesses. The terrorist threat might easily extend beyond the Middle East into Europe and also the United States, while the dollar costs of a major new conflict and its aftermath could break the bank, literally.

Another major consideration before ratcheting up hostilities should be that a war with Iran might not be containable. As the warning from President Vladimir Putin to Netanyahu made clear, other major powers have interests in what goes on in the Persian Gulf, and there is a real danger that a regional war could have global consequences.

In sum, we see a growing risk that the U.S. will become drawn into hostilities on pretexts fabricated by Israel and Saudi Arabia for their actual common objective (“regime change” in Iran). A confluence of factors and misconceptions about what is at stake and how such a conflict is likely to develop, coming from both inside and outside the Administration have, unfortunately, made such an outcome increasingly likely.

We have seen this picture before, just 15 years ago in Iraq, which should serve as a warning. The prevailing perception of threat that the Mullahs of Iran allegedly pose directly against the security of the U.S. is largely contrived. Even if all the allegations were true, they would not justify an Iraq-style “preventive war” violating national as well as international law. An ill-considered U.S. intervention in Iran is surely not worth the horrific humanitarian, military, economic, and political cost to be paid if Washington allows itself to become part of an armed attack.

***

FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY

William Binney, former NSA Technical Director for World Geopolitical & Military Analysis; Co-founder of NSA’s Signals Intelligence Automation Research Center (ret.)

Kathleen Christison, CIA, Senior Analyst on Middle East (ret.)

Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Larry C. Johnson, former CIA and State Department Counter Terrorism officer

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF; ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC) (ret.)

John Brady Kiesling, Foreign Service Officer; resigned Feb. 27, 2003 as Political Counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, in protest against the U.S. attack on Iraq (ret.)

John Kiriakou, Former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Edward Loomis, Jr., former NSA Technical Director for the Office of Signals Processing (ret.)

David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council, National Intelligence Estimates Officer (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst; CIA Presidential briefer (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office, State Department Bureau of Intelligence & Research (INR), and former senior staffer on Senate Intelligence Committee (ret.)

Kirk Wiebe, former Senior Analyst, SIGINT Automation Research Center, NSA ret.)

Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State; Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)

Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)

Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)

Ann Wright, Colonel, US Army (ret.); also Foreign Service Officer who, like Political Counselor John Brady Kiesling, resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq

Source links:

https://www.mintpressnews.com/intelligence-veterans-warn-risk-u-s-iran-conflict-based-false-pretexts/238120/

[1] [2] [3] [4]

Donald Trump prepares ground for the next targets of the US imperialism: Iran, Pakistan

Iran, as supporter of self-determination, a thorn in imperial Washington’s side

Birth of an insurgency: The US-Israeli “secret deal” to manipulate protests in Iran

Trump’s State Department spent over $1m in Iran to exploit unrest for ‘regime change’, documents reveal

The United States of Amnesia: Americans are ready to buy another series of bogus evidence as pretext for war with Iran, as it happened with Iraq

Comments

The wounded US imperialist beast becomes more dangerous than ever as desperately seeks to start a WWIII

globinfo freexchange It seems that the declining Western superpower is losing ground and tries hardly to avoid the inevitable. The US imperialist beast, despite all the destruction that causes, is failing to fulfill its utter objectives. Which in short, are the dissolution of Russia and China, looting their vast resources, as well as the full expansion of the destructive neoliberal model throughout these areas and other countries allied with the Sino-Russian bloc. Most importantly, the wounded beast is loosing much of its strength due to the rapid de-dollarization that has started approximately ten years ago, as dollar had become the front line of the US imperialist sweeping force since the early 70s. As if nothing has changed, the beast insists on using the same tools to prevail in the global geopolitical field, ignoring the unprecedented changes and complexities under current circumstances. In a move (as it seems) of desperation, the United States House of Representative

Atlanta Police Violently Arrest Emory Students & Faculty to Clear Gaza Solidarity Encampment

Democracy Now! As a wave of student protests against Israel’s war on Gaza continues to spread from coast to coast, schools and law enforcement have responded with increasing brutality to campus encampments. One of the most violent police crackdowns took place at Emory University in Atlanta on Thursday, when local and state police swept onto the campus just hours after students had set up tents on the quad in protest against Israel’s war on Gaza as well as the planned police training center known as Cop City. Police used tear gas and stun guns to break up the encampment as they wrestled people to the ground, and are accused of using rubber bullets. Among those arrested were a few faculty members. Democracy Now! spoke with two of the arrested professors: Noëlle McAfee, chair of the philosophy department, and Emil’ Keme, professor of English and Indigenous studies. Also with Palestinian American organizer and medical student Umaymah Mohammad, who describes how Emory has repeat

Indiana University Brings In SNIPERS & Then LIES About It

Katie Halper Katie Halper talks to Aidan Khamis and Bryce Greene, who was arrested at Indiana University where snipers have been brought in. Bryce Greene is a student, writer, organizer and media critic based in Indianapolis. He is a contributor to Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. He was arrested and banned from Indiana University's campus for participating in the Gaza solidarity encampment at Indiana University. Aidan Khamis is an organizer for Palestine Solidarity Committee IU and IU divestment coalition.

"Student Intifada": Stanford, University of Michigan, Indiana University, & more

The Real News Network Seven months into Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, a student-led grassroots movement is spreading across the US and beyond, hearkening back to the student protests of the ‘60s that played a pivotal role in ending the US war in Vietnam. In what is being called the “student intifada,” with over 100 encampments going up at different college and university campuses, students, faculty, grad students, and other campus community members are exercising civil disobedience, occupying space on campuses, defying brutal repression from administrators and police, combatting skewed and wildly lopsided narratives in corporate media, and pressuring their universities to “disclose and divest” their investments in companies and financial institutions connected to Israel. TRNN speaks with encampment organizers/participants from the University of Michigan, the Indiana University, and Stanford University, and gets updates from encampments from New York to California.

Yanis Varoufakis Banned from Germany as Berlin Police Raid & Shut Down Palestinian Conference

Democracy Now! As Germany intensifies its crackdown on pro-Palestinian voices, Democracy Now! spoke with Greek economist and politician Yanis Varoufakis, one of the planned speakers at a conference in Berlin last weekend that was forcibly shut down by police. The Palestine Congress was scheduled to be held for three days, but police stormed the venue as the first panelist spoke. Germany's Interior Ministry had also banned some conference speakers from even entering the country, including Varoufakis, the Palestinian British surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah and the Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta. " This is not about protecting Jewish lives and Jews from antisemitism. It's all about protecting the right of Israel to commit any war crime of its choice, " says Varoufakis. Varoufakis speaks also about freeing Julian Assange and his new book Technofeudalism . Related: Germany again on a dark path towards fascism

Pro-Palestinian Campus Encampments Spread Nationwide Amid Mass Arrests at Columbia, NYU & Yale

Democracy Now! Palestinian solidarity protests and encampments are appearing on college campuses from Massachusetts to California to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza and to call for divestment from Israeli apartheid. This week, police have raided encampments and arrested students at Yale and New York University. Palestinian American scholar and New York University professor Helga Tawil-Souri describes forming a faculty buffer to protect students, negotiating with police, and the ensuing crackdown that led to over 100 arrests Monday night. Uptown in New York City, the encampment at Columbia University is entering its seventh day despite mass arrests of protesters last week. "In my opinion, the NYPD were called in under false pretenses by the president of the university," says Joseph Slaughter, professor at Columbia University. "The university is being run as a sort of ad-hocracy at this point, the senior administration making up policies and procedures and pro

'Make no mistake, the full-scale assault on Rafah would be a human catastrophe': Guterres

Al Jazeera English United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appealed for an end to the bloodshed in Gaza. He says the Middle East is at risk of explosion if the fighting continues. In his speech, Guterres urged Israel’s allies to press its leadership to stop the war on Gaza. “ I appeal to all those with influence over Israel to do everything in their power to help avert even more tragedy. The international community has a shared responsibility to promote a humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and a massive surge in life-saving aid, ” he said. “ It is time for the parties to seize the opportunity and secure a deal for the sake of their own people. ”

Biden PANICS Over Israel's Genocide

Owen Jones Biden's latest move tells us one thing: they're panicking.

Day 1846: Julian Assange still in prison and under slow-motion execution by the Anglo-American imperialist criminals

failed evolution On 11 April 2019, the Ecuadorian government of traitor Lenin Moreno, invited the Metropolitan Police into the Ecuadorian embassy in London, and they arrested Julian Assange . Since then, Assange is kept in Belmarsh high security prison in London, without actual charges. The real reason world's number one political prisoner is still kept in this high security prison, is because he exposed horrendous war crimes carried out by the US imperialists and their allies. The ruthless Western imperialist regime wants to punish the No1 real journalist in the world and make him an example for any Whistleblower or real journalist who will attempt to expose its big crimes in the future. And the Anglo-American axis has now become officially a fascist coalition , framed by the rest of its Western pets. UK's Home Secretary Priti Patel, one of the most ruthless ever, decided to extradite Julian Assange to US. No surprise of course. The only question we had in mind is

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog