Interview with 2 CIA analysts who say Iraq War Intelligence was Lies

Post-9/11 Era Forum

Ray McGovern came to the CIA in 1964 in the wake of President John Kennedy's call to "ask what you can do for your country." For the next 27 years, McGovern did his best to speak the truth, as he saw it, to those in power—including presidents and their national security staffs. David MacMichael also worked for the CIA, investigating Reagan administration claims that Nicaragua was fomenting regional wars. Both men came to the conclusion that ideology and politics, not "truth," was fueling U.S. foreign policy, in Iraq and elsewhere, and have since been on a mission to bring light to the shady world of spy vs. spy—and encourage their former intelligence colleagues to refuse to remain silent. They were interviewed in July by Sojourners editors Rose Marie Berger and Jim Rice.

Sojourners: In the buildup to the war in Iraq, the Bush administration made allegations about Iraq that are proving to be demonstrably false. Were they just misunderstandings of intelligence data, or were we sold a bill of goods? Was it an honest mistake?

Ray McGovern: No, by no stretch of the imagination was it an honest mistake. We were able to tell by last fall that there was very little substance to the main charges with respect to weapons of mass destruction. Even the sanitized version of the National Intelligence Estimate that was put on the CIA Web site—if you have any experience in intelligence, you could see what a thin reed they were relying on, and that there was little possibility of substantiating Dick Cheney's claim that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. That, of course, is the mushroom cloud that scared Congress into ceding its power to wage war.

Sojourners: Why is that significant?

McGovern: It's the first time that I've seen such a long-term, orchestrated plan of deception by which one branch of our government deliberately misled the other on a matter of war and peace. Here was a very calculated plan, proceeding from a "Mein Kampf" type of document. All one need do is consult the Project for the New American Century on the Web to see the ideological and strategic underpinnings of this campaign. The first objective was to deceive Congress into approving the plans. They succeeded masterfully. They had their war, and they thought that in the wake of the war, with Iraqis opening their arms to us, no one would really care whether there were, in fact, weapons of mass destruction. They were absolutely wrong on that. People do care, as one by one our servicemen and women are killed in a war fought on false pretences.

David MacMichael: The use of deception to frighten Congress and secure its consent for the October resolution reflects the way our government has been functioning in the area of war and peace for more than half a century. Congress has effectively resigned its power in these areas to the executive. This has been done over and over again, mostly notably in the case of Vietnam, and the response of Congress has been nearly always to pass what is, by my definition, a plainly unconstitutional act, the War Powers Act.

Sojourners: Do you think that those deceptions amount to high crimes and misdemeanors?

MacMichael: It's rather more serious than misleading about dalliances with interns.

McGovern: I was strongly in favor of the impeachment of Bill Clinton, because he lied under oath. When a president of the United States lies under oath, he should be impeached, in my view. Certainly deceiving Congress and the people of the United States into waging an unprovoked war is a matter of a different scale altogether.

Sojourners: Bush administration officials claimed to have no knowledge that the allegations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were thoroughly discredited and the "evidence" proven to be forgeries before it was made public. Are they telling the truth?

McGovern: I go back to Yul Brynner's famous line in The King and I: "It is a false lie." The real sin was committed back in September 2002, when that false lie was dragged out and used as the most persuasive evidence that Saddam Hussein was about to get nuclear weapons in his hands. It was a PR masterpiece. That was where the damage was done. That's where the constitutional crisis comes in.

Sojourners: So you'd say that the intelligence was being used to support policy, not to shape it?

McGovern: That's correct. That's the unpardonable sin for an intelligence analyst. That is a violation of our ethic. It's a violation of honesty, and it's a violation of the orderly progress of government. If a president cannot go to the CIA and say, "Look, I want a straight answer here. I don't care what the State Department says, or what the Defense Department says. I want you to tell me what you really think." If he cannot do that, then the president is missing an essential tool for the orderly conduct of foreign policy.

Sojourners: It appears in that formulation that the president honestly went for a candid assessment and didn't get it. Is that how you see the situation?

McGovern: Whether the president was aware of all the chicanery around him or not, I don't know—but I ask you, which would be worse?

Sojourners: Tell us about your journey. How did you get to where you are today?

MacMichael: In the early 1980s, I was working at the National Intelligence Council over at Langley, in the analytic group. Our main task was the preparation of National Intelligence Estimates, and I had the dubious honor of heading the drafting of one or two of these. It was then that I became totally convinced that the Reagan administration was seriously misrepresenting the evidence used to justify its supposedly covert war on Nicaragua.

After returning from a trip to Nicaragua, I wanted to find some way of trying to alter the ongoing policy the government followed both in El Salvador and Nicaragua, and came across Witness for Peace. I helped out filing papers for a little while until I got some knowledge of who these people were and what they were about.

Sojourners: Doing some investigation of them, as it were.

MacMichael: Precisely. Just because people put a cross on their door doesn't mean they're people I want to associate with!

After several events in Nicaragua—including the attacks on the airport, the mining of the harbors, and a few other things—I became convinced that we were in real danger of an open U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. I said, "Well, if I'm going to speak out, I'd better do it before the event instead of after it."

If I required moral justification for what I was doing, it was my acquaintance with inspiring figures like Archbishop Oscar Romero and Father Miguel D'Escoto in Nicaragua, whom I came to know well. That helped me to believe that what I was doing was not only necessary but also right, and that has helped me sleep better at night.

Sojourners: Ray, what was your work with the CIA?

McGovern: I considered my work with the Central Intelligence Agency to be the best job ever. It involved preparing and presenting the president's daily brief, briefing one-on-one to the vice president, secretaries of State and Defense, the assistant to the president for national security affairs, and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. My experience was that we on the analytic side of things were able to do what the scripture says on the entrance to the building, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." It's not always possible to know the truth, but it's always possible to gather the evidence and that, by and large, is what we were able to do.

Sojourners: For many of us, the CIA represents illegal assassinations, the overthrow of duly elected governments, and the like more than it does truth-telling. Do you think one can live a life of integrity while working inside the system?

MacMichael: There is an inherent seduction in being on the inside—the belief, which is sometimes justified, that you can have more influence if you are on the inside "speaking truth to power," or at least maybe speaking half-truths to power. C.S. Lewis in his trilogy pointed out that that is a seduction, and it almost always leads to failure. Ray alluded to Nazi Germany. If properly organized, a system need only have a small minority of its officials involved directly in the apparent evil-doing. The others shuffle the papers and write the memoranda and don't have to go down into the torture chambers.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), which we founded in January, recently challenged U.S. intelligence officers who believe their work is incorrectly represented by the administration that they have an ethical duty to stand up and tell the general public, "This is wrong."

Sojourners: What led you to go public in your opposition to what the government was doing?

McGovern: Toward the end of World War II, one of the few Germans who spoke out against the war, a man named Albrecht Haushofer, was imprisoned in Berlin. The people in charge of the prison were required to get an admission of guilt from a prisoner before execution. Just days before his death, Albrecht composed a sonnet he titled "Guilt," which says in part, "Okay, I acknowledge I was guilty, but it is other than you think. I should have earlier recognized my duty. I should have more sharply called evil evil. My own heart, my own conscience, I too long betrayed. I lied to myself and others for too long, because I knew earlier what this whole course would lead to. I warned, but not hard enough and clear." I believe we are all guilty of that, even those of us who did warn. We didn't warn early enough and we didn't warn sharp enough and we didn't warn "clear."

I see that as our task now. As we recognized that intelligence would play an incredibly important role in how the war would be "justified," we founded VIPS. This movement is directed at speaking clearly, speaking definitively enough from our own experience in intelligence so that our fellow citizens can make their own judgments with respect to the rectitude or deception attending this war.

Sojourners: You've mentioned a colleague at the CIA named Sam Adams who wrestled with these issues during the Vietnam War.

McGovern: Sam uncovered the fact that there were twice as many Vietnamese Communists under arms as the military in Saigon was willing to admit. Over lunch Sam told me of a cable from Gen. Creighton Abrams that said in effect, "We can't very well say that there are twice as many Viet Cong as we thought there were. The press would have a field day about this." I said to myself, My God, that cable needs to be taken to The New York Times. I never suggested that to Sam. He never did do that. The Tet offensive just two months later demonstrated that Sam was right—at great human cost. And the war dragged on for seven more years.

A senior CIA official later made the mistake of jocularly asking Adams if he thought the Agency had "gone beyond the bounds of reasonable dishonesty." I had to restrain Sam, who had not only a keen sense of integrity but firsthand experience of what our troops were experiencing in the jungles of Vietnam. Adams himself became, in a very real sense, a casualty of Vietnam. He died of a heart attack at 55, with remorse he was unable to shake. You see, he decided to "go through channels." He allowed himself to be diddled for so many years that by the time he went public the war was mostly over—and the damage done.

The reason I didn't go public myself was because I had just been selected for a plum assignment abroad. Rather than face into it, I equivocated. I said to myself, "This is a great career, and if you stay in here you may get to fight better battles and do even more good"—all these seductive, intoxicating pretexts for avoiding facing the issue and saying this is a major lie perpetrated by our country. I regret that very much. I failed.

Sojourners: Are we going to be seeing the same kinds of intelligence estimates about Iran's alleged weapons of mass destruction and the peril thereof as we did about Iraq? Is Iran next?

MacMichael: It's a matter of near certainty that the United States will apply diplomatic, public relations pressure on Iran, an already designated rogue state. But in terms of taking the type of military action that we took against Iraq, I don't anticipate that that will happen, if for no other reason than we have our military hands full in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

McGovern: The war on Iraq was just as much prompted by the strategic objectives of the state of Israel as it was the strategic objectives of the United States. The people running this war are people who are well attuned to Israel's objectives. The authors of the Project for the New American Century have set out for the United States to become the dominant power in the world. Israel is hell bent on remaining the dominant power in the Middle East. The confluence of objectives is striking.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, during his last visit here to Washington, raised the possibility that Israel might take out the nuclear facilities that are being constructed in Iran. This is exactly what they did, with respect to Iraq, in 1981. The Osirak nuclear facility was taken out by Israeli Mirage bombers. Vice President Cheney endorsed that attack and cited it in his speech a year ago. We later learned that Cheney has a photograph of the destroyed Osirak reactor on the wall of his office. One can by no means rule out the possibility that Sharon, with the tacit encouragement of the Pentagon, would fly his fighter bombers right into Iran and take out their nuclear facility, with consequences that one can hardly imagine.

Sojourners: What are some things that give you hope in what seem like dark times?

MacMichael: If there's anything that makes me hopeful, it's that we still have a relatively open society. Whether this in itself is a snare and a delusion, I don't know. If, in fact, you are merely being allowed to speak out because it's having no effect on the decision-making process, it's not so hopeful. I certainly hope for change, and we do have an election coming up next year. Maybe we'll see something then.

VERY interesting stuff Search4Truth. I commend you for contributing this relevantly to our proper information about FACTS.
I just watched last night on TV a report where former CIA top executives developed the same kind of reasoning ... backed with facts too. In particular, they explained that american intelligence agencies and US officials have been given before 9/11 significant pieces of evidence about a mass attempt in preparation on the US soil, by some of their european counterparts (Germans, Frenchs, but also Israëlis and Jordanians) - information they simply disregarded with the result we know. This dereliction of duty is in itself extremely alarming; if you add to this the actions carried out in Iraq ... a lot, lot of questions may be asked about the real motivations and purposes. How long will it take for the vast majority of the Americans to realize how many misdemeanors have been done and are still being done by a few people they have issued a democratic mandate to ?

President Clinton said on national television that he received the exact same intelligence Bush did concluding that Iraq had WMDs. Are Clinton and Bush working together in this big scandal? When hell freezes over.
Intelligence analysis is not a science, it is an art. Analysts offer their opinions based on what they know, and what you have here are two people offering their opinions about the Iraq war. Why do you guys keep posting opinons under the guise of fact? You're not fooling anybody.
As for you JY French, speaking about real motivations, if France was so against the Iraq war for humanitarian reasons, then why now is it not contributing to the reconstruction of Iraq? Answer: France acted in its own interest just as America did when we removed a threat to our country, why antagonize us when our governments are acting under the same rationale? If France was really concerned with the welfare of the Iraqi people, then they would be there right now helping out with reconstruction.

Two things come to mind when Clinton received his information.

First Clinton received his info in 1998, thus following the bombing of Iraq with cruise missiles. Saddam had plenty of time to hide those WMD by the time 2003 came around. Remember Bush took this evidence to the world for their approval. When he didn't get it, he invaded Iraq anyway.

Why did he even present the evidence in the first place? And why did Bush referring to his right to strike Iraq talk about UN Council resolutions and then turn around and defy the same Council when they voted for him not to invade?

Secondly, Clinton never intended to invade Iraq, just send them a message which he clearly did. If you're saying Clinton would have done what Bush had done, Clinton denies that to this day. In fact, just before the war he stated how important it was to get UN approval before we go into Iraq.

As for the French, they have a right to refuse. The sit on the council just like the US does. The fact that Bush berated every nation, including France, because they didn't roll over and say yes because he wanted them to demonstrates a dangerous and closed mind. Who are we to tell anyone they should vote what we tell them? I don't blame the French and anyone else who doesn't help. After all, we went in on our own, so build it up on our own. Don't ask the same nations you told to kiss your a$$ to help you out of this mess now you've gotten yourself into it.

JY, thanks for your reply.
My opinion is that now that we have hindsight, analysts are going to interpret the facts depending on their personal ideologies. Analysts that were against the war are now saying that the evidence for the war was thin, likewise, analysts that supported the war would probably claim that the intelligence was solid. Why didn't these CIA guys speak up before the war, before we had the luxery of searching iraq for ourselves? Because they honestly didn't know what we would find, and since we have found no stockpiles, of course they are going to come out now and say that the evidence for war was thin, they are not only protecting their own reputation, but some are probably also motivated by political views.
As for working together in the future, i hope that we can do that as well. Despite strained relations between the US and FRance, i think a gesture of aid in iraq would go over extremely well here in the US. The problem is exactly what we agreed on earlier though, even within the UN, each country is only going to support action that advances its own interests.

All right, jrkiv, I understand and respect your point of view. However I still get confused about the whole thing. For example, the former head of US inspectors in Iraq - I don't remember his name right now, I believe it is Scott - a few years ago, has always told his opposition to the war in Iraq, arguing that had Saddam WMDs, these ones had most certainly been destroyed or were out of order, due to past strikes over Iraq, while the remainder, if any, was spread in the country, thus rendered unoperative in case of a global conflict. This chief inspector is a former Marine, and certainly a patriot; moreover he's got experienced with Iraq and the WMDs concern; his statements come from his team's work on the field. Why did he always say this war wasn't justified, and that official arguments put ahead to try to do so (remember the so-called "imminent threat") was merely BS ?
Why former senior intelligence officials, still in office a few months or years ago, openly talk out against the recent events and actual government ? Political bias ? What about the facts discoursed about ?
Talking out like this might be a common practice for such people in the US - please give me your opinion about it, I need to be enlightened on this issue - but let me tell you that if, in France, counterparts of such people went to say the equivalent of what i've heard, while France would be involved in this kind of conflict, this would be a scandal in the extreme, with huge demonstrations and the government overtrown quickly. Look to what happens in Britain, Blair's leadership is seriously at issue.

I've never heard of the guy you are talking about, but just from what you wrote I already disagree with his position. Look at his statement, "the remainder of WMDs, if any, were spread across the country thus rendered inoperative in the case of global conflict." JY, the US didn't invade iraq because it feared a global conflict or an ICBM launch, it feared nuclear, chemical, or biological material produced by hussein being passed over to terrorist to be smuggled into the US. Nowhere does he rule out with any certainty that Iraq didn't have WMDs. I don't care if the Iraqis couldn't use them, just them having them was the danger. The fact that this Scott character didn't aknowledge this as the head of US inspectors makes me seriously question his motivation.
I think this whole Iraq issue has become extremely politicized because it 'appears' as though hussein did not have a WMD stockpile. However we have found enormous evidence that he had a WMD production infrastructure set up, why was that there if nothing was being made?
For the people who cite the apparent lack of stockpiles, what are you advocating? Wait until he does have these weapons piled up and then take him out? What would the cost have been then?
There are some great parallels between this situation and the situation felt by europe before WWII. In the 30's Hitler was not permitted to have an airforce, nor could his standing army exceed 100 thousand men. However, he defied these conditions and started building an army. Rather than take action before his army was constructed, Europe sat back and watched. We all know what happened after Hitler was finished with his development, you better than most americans JY, although American graves litter Europe because of it.
My point is, the lack of any quantity of WMDs but the presence of the facilities to make them give me great relief. It means that our invasion came at the perfect time. It was justified in that Hussein would have stockpiled these weapons had we let him, and it curbed a possible catstrophe in the near future. Just think, WWII could have been prevented with the same kind of action.
Of course we'll never know, and people who are political enemies of Bush will always claim that this war was unjust, but let them pipe. Bush is the kind of man that would rather face accusations than face the knowledge that he did not act when he could have prevented a future disaster.

I've never heard of the guy you are talking about, but just from what you wrote I already disagree with his position. Look at his statement, "the remainder of WMDs, if any, were spread across the country thus rendered inoperative in the case of global conflict." JY, the US didn't invade iraq because it feared a global conflict or an ICBM launch, it feared nuclear, chemical, or biological material produced by hussein being passed over to terrorist to be smuggled into the US. Nowhere does he rule out with any certainty that Iraq didn't have WMDs. I don't care if the Iraqis couldn't use them, just them having them was the danger.

This guy does exist, I just did not take enough time to search the web in order to bring evidence of his existence and opinion, but I believe it's quite easy to do so.
jrkiv: I respect your citizen's opinion about the US fear of nuclear, biological, or chemical terrorist threat, but mine is that the US government did wrong since such weapons smuggling to terrorists might as well been done by many rogue states else that Iraq. Why this country in particular ? I mean: we people from western countries are all possibly endangered by several dictators. Personally, I fear much more North Korea, or Pakistan, for they have nuclear weapons and that the situation there is rather unsteady right now.

The fact that this Scott character didn't aknowledge this as the head of US inspectors makes me seriously question his motivation.

I have heard an interview of this man, he seemed on the contrary very motivated and developed an opinion backed with facts, but after all it is a question of personal appreciation.

I think this whole Iraq issue has become extremely politicized because it 'appears' as though hussein did not have a WMD stockpile. However we have found enormous evidence that he had a WMD production infrastructure set up, why was that there if nothing was being made?
For the people who cite the apparent lack of stockpiles, what are you advocating? Wait until he does have these weapons piled up and then take him out? What would the cost have been then?

I don't think we should have waited. The fact is that inspections were carried out and that it was possible to put much more inspectors on duty, with appropriate means, to be sure to assess properly the situation. Meanwhile, it was possible to proceed the same way with other rogue states, in order to make sure of them too. This option was not retained.

There are some great parallels between this situation and the situation felt by europe before WWII. In the 30's Hitler was not permitted to have an airforce, nor could his standing army exceed 100 thousand men. However, he defied these conditions and started building an army. Rather than take action before his army was constructed, Europe sat back and watched. We all know what happened after Hitler was finished with his development, you better than most americans JY, although American graves litter Europe because of it.

There are some parallels, but also huge differences. You wrote it yourself: Hitler defied the imposed conditions, but in such an extent that certainly no doubt or ambiguity was possible. European countries did wrong by waiting until the process was finished, obviously.
Too much graves litter Europe because of this dereliction of duty. Numerous French and Americans ones among them.

My point is, the lack of any quantity of WMDs but the presence of the facilities to make them give me great relief. It means that our invasion came at the perfect time. It was justified in that Hussein would have stockpiled these weapons had we let him, and it curbed a possible catstrophe in the near future. Just think, WWII could have been prevented with the same kind of action.
Of course we'll never know, and people who are political enemies of Bush will always claim that this war was unjust, but let them pipe. Bush is the kind of man that would rather face accusations than face the knowledge that he did not act when he could have prevented a future disaster.

Well, enquiries are going on and History will teach us about facts and the necessary stepping back within a few years.
But, I would like to be sure that Bush had always acted to prevent a future disaster. The 9/11 event is an alarming example. How can one explain that (that's only an example) France sent intelligence to Americans, concerning evidence of something in preparation on the US soil, and that this information had not been taken into account at all ? And that's not the only case, far from that. I don't understand, really not.

JY, Iraq was deemed a greater threat because of its dictator, who had previously not only demonstrated his desire for more power with his invasion of kuwait, but also his butchery with the murder of his own people and his possession of WMDs with his gassing of the kurds.
There was a great Washington post article today about a congressional inquiry into the pre-war intelligence, concluding that the intelligence community dropped the ball with regard to iraq. Everybody who prefers to believe that we were lied to go on ahead, but read this article anyway and see how improperly prepared the CIA and other intelligence reports were.
As for the French providing intel that something big was gonna happen on 9/11, i'm sure we appreciate the help but we typically know when something big is going down based on what analysts call "chatter." The problem is we rarely know specifics to prevent major events. If France provided the US with flight numbers of the flights that were going to be hijacked, then i can understand concern, otherwise i don't think we knew enough to prevent anything. I'm sure you have great faith in French intelligence, but before this war the CIA was considered the best in the world.
The fact that you are blaming 9/11 on bush is just evidence of how political this has gotten. Does anybody blame pearl harbor on anybody other than the japanese? Of course not, it's absurd that people are pointing the finger at bush. Nevermind the terrorists that planned 9/11 since 1996, took flight classes, selected targets, received a ton of funding, hijacked airplanes and murder thousands of people. It's no bin laden's fault it's Bush's!!! Pretty transparent.

JY, Iraq was deemed a greater threat because of its dictator, who had previously not only demonstrated his desire for more power with his invasion of kuwait, but also his butchery with the murder of his own people and his possession of WMDs with his gassing of the kurds.

Indeed Saddam was a dictator of the worst kind, and nobody will cry over him.
My point in fact is that there are other dictators who deserve at least the same treatment. North Korea leader in the first place; he has got nukes and exert a real permanent threat to his neighbors and, given the power of these WMDs, to the whole planet.
Pakistan is more and more a real "imminent threat", an unsteady country owing nukes. This federal country has now one or two of its provinces ruled by Pachtouns islamists, brethren of the Talibans, smuggling weapons at high scale with their Afghan counterparts, and right now trying to "cut-and-paste" good all Taliban traditions on their own territory. Really alarming.
Instead of focusing on Saddam, an efficient war on terror should be carried out GLOBALLY and TOGETHER within the frame of the UN. This institution might have been impotent on some issues in the past, for political or diplomatical reasons. But is it a reason to trow away the baby with the water of his bath ? 9/11 was a good opportunity for the US to ask right after for international action - and draw a concerted plan to move on the whole planet. A good occasion also to reform the UN in order to get it fully efficient, by stinging it and his key members in the right direction. This Iraq affair is exactly the counter example of that in my opinion.

There was a great Washington post article today about a congressional inquiry into the pre-war intelligence, concluding that the intelligence community dropped the ball with regard to iraq. Everybody who prefers to believe that we were lied to go on ahead, but read this article anyway and see how improperly prepared the CIA and other intelligence reports were.
As for the French providing intel that something big was gonna happen on 9/11, i'm sure we appreciate the help but we typically know when something big is going down based on what analysts call "chatter." The problem is we rarely know specifics to prevent major events. If France provided the US with flight numbers of the flights that were going to be hijacked, then i can understand concern, otherwise i don't think we knew enough to prevent anything. I'm sure you have great faith in French intelligence, but before this war the CIA was considered the best in the world.

In fact, I don't have a faith this great in French intelligence, but generally its knowledge of islamic terrorism is acknowledged to be relevant. John Ashcroft himself congratulated his French counterparts a few months ago for the quality of their cooperation. The French transmitted files on Moussaoui before 9/11, making evidence of his links with Al Quaeda. Nothing was done, information was quasi-ignored. The Israëlis gave indication of mass attempts in preparation, involving aircrafts hi-jacked and thrown into buildings - with pretty good details on the whole scenario. We know the result. I can't believe that 9/11 events are purely the result of some conspiracy, but the only fact that it have happened although previous alarms, is an open door to a lot of doubts and questions.

The fact that you are blaming 9/11 on bush is just evidence of how political this has gotten. Does anybody blame pearl harbor on anybody other than the japanese? Of course not, it's absurd that people are pointing the finger at bush. Nevermind the terrorists that planned 9/11 since 1996, took flight classes, selected targets, received a ton of funding, hijacked airplanes and murder thousands of people. It's no bin laden's fault it's Bush's!!! Pretty transparent.

You wrote it: the attempts were planned since 1996. Suspect individuals attended flight classes, declaring to their instructors that they were only interested to get acquainted with how to turn right or left ! (CIA operatives reports, not taken into account). My point however is not to seize any opportunity to blame Bush personally. It is to believe that his convictions about the way to wage a good "war on terror" might be as relevant that used to be terrorism watch over the US.

Concerning Pakistan, I want to pay a tribute to Daniel Pearl, a brave journalist, killed atrociously by terrorists after having collected evidence of the implication of top Pakistan officials in misdemeanors in relation with islamist activism. Our tomorrow's worst nightmares might be located there ...