Who Is Ray McGovern?

Who Is Ray McGovern?

Thanks to www.cooperativeresearch.org

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After January 20, 2001: George Tenet Accompanies Daily Morning CIA Briefer to Oval Office
After George W. Bush is inaugurated into office, the manner in which the daily intelligence briefings are presented to the president changes. President Bill Clinton read the PDBs, usually about 12 pages in length, himself and often had no need for the follow-up oral briefings. Bush, on the other hand, prefers a shorter seven-to-10-page PDB containing “more targeted hard intelligence” items. The PDB is delivered to him orally, as he reads along. According to the Washington Post, the CIA’s top officials personally review the PDB before it is presented to Bush. “Tenet reviews the PDB with the briefer as they drive from the director’s Maryland home to the White House. On the way, Tenet often makes notes and looks over the backup material the briefer has brought. Tenet and, often, the deputy director for intelligence have already looked it over before going to bed the night before, though it is finished by staffers who go to work at midnight and monitor incoming intelligence throughout the night.” Tenet is present during the actual briefing and “expands where he believes necessary and responds to questions by Bush and others,” the Post reports. [CNN, 1/18/2001; Washington Post, 5/24/2002] According to retired veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern, the CIA director’s presence during these briefing is highly unusual. The daily briefings began during the Reagan administration at the suggestion of then-Vice President George H. W. Bush. According to McGovern, the briefings were done at that time by a “small team of briefers… comprised of senior analysts who had been around long enough to earn respect and trust.” McGovern, who did such briefings for the vice president, the secretaries of state and defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and the national security assistant from 1981 to 1985, says that briefers “had the full confidence of the CIA director, who… rarely inserted himself into the PDB process.…. The last thing we briefers needed was the director breathing down our necks.” McGovern suggests that Tenet’s presence at the briefings possibly influenced the content of the briefing. [Truthout (.org), 3/5/2005]

2002-early 2003: Cheney and Libby Make Visits to CIA Headquarters
Vice President Dick Cheney, sometimes accompanied by his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, visits the offices of US intelligence analysts working at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia “approximately 10” times. He drills them on their intelligence work on Iraq. Some analysts later complain that Cheney’s visits made them feel pressured to provide the administration with conclusions that supported the case for war. Other analysts will say they did not feel pressured. [Washington Post, 6/5/2003; Sydney Morning Herald, 6/5/2003; Guardian, 7/17/2003; Bamford, 2004, pp. 336; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 242] Michael Sulick, deputy chief of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, will later recall, “It was like they were hoping we’d find something buried in the files or come back with a different answer.” As a result of these visits, Sulick believes that agency analysts became “overly eager to please.” [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 4-5] According to Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran CIA analyst, these visits were “unprecedented.” [Common Dreams, 7/23/2003] Newt Gingrich also makes visits to CIA headquarters in Langley. [Guardian, 7/17/2003]

February 12, 2002: Defense Intelligence Agency Issues Report on Recent Italian Intelligence Report; Leaves Out Caveats
The Defense Intelligence Agency issues a report summarizing the February 5, 2002 SISMI report (see February 5, 2002) that suggested that Iraq had struck an agreement with Niger to purchase 500 tons of uranium per year. The report, titled “Niamey signed an agreement to sell 500 tons of uranium a year to Baghdad,” concludes that “Iraq probably is searching abroad for natural uranium to assist in its nuclear weapons program.” It fails to mention the concerns shared by some US intelligence analysts about the credibility of the source. The report is included in a morning briefing to Vice President Dick Cheney (see (February 13, 2002)). [US Congress, 7/7/2004] Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern describes Cheney’s receipt of this document as “odd.” “[I]n more than two years of briefing then-Vice President George H. W. Bush every other morning, not once did he ask a question about a DIA report or even indicate that he had read one,” McGovern will note. “That this particular report was given to Cheney almost certainly reflects the widespread practice of ‘cherry picking’ intelligence.” [AfterDowningStreet (.org), 7/25/2005]

(Summer 2006): Nine US Officials Say They Believe Forged Niger Documents Were Part of Covert Operation
Investigative journalist Craig Unger reports that nine US officials believe “the Niger documents were part of a covert operation to deliberately mislead the American public.” The officials are 30-year CIA veteran Milt Bearden; Colonel W. Patrick Lang, a former DIA defense intelligence officer for the Middle East, South Asia, and terrorism; Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell; Melvin Goodman, a former division chief and senior analyst at the CIA and the State Department; Ray McGovern, a veteran CIA analyst; Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who served in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia division in 2002 and 2003; Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993; former CIA official Philip Giraldi; and Vincent Cannistraro, the former chief of operations of the CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center. [Vanity Fair, 7/2006, pp. 150]