Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[seabass]

>>>anyone want to argue with this guy<<<


I would. But I wouldn't argue with this guy. Would you? Robert Baer, former CIA operative:


MATTHEWS: Did we fight a war just for aggressive reasons? Or was there a self-defense aspect...

(CROSSTALK)

BAER: We fought a war on a lie. And that‘s the important issue, on a lie.

MATTHEWS: Whose?

BAER: The administration‘s, the White House‘s. It was not the CIA‘s.

It was not the Pentagon‘s. This stuff was ordered top-down.

MATTHEWS: What is George Tenet going to say in his book, when it comes out in a couple of weeks? Is he going to say, they made me do it?

BAER: Tenet is a political servant of Washington. He will come in and say, this is what they wanted. I served the president, this executive branch. I was an employee of...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Who is the CIA director responsive to, under the Constitution, under our form of government?

(CROSSTALK)

BAER: The president of the United States.

MATTHEWS: So, if the president says the moon is made of blue cheese, he‘s supposed to say that?

BAER: Got to. And then they put it in the national intelligence estimate October 2002, gave it to Congress. And then they went out to the press and sold this.

I mean, look, “The Washington Post” and “The New York Times” were—took point on this.

MATTHEWS: Why would some young person with a good education ever want to serve an agency like CIA, if they were told what you just said, that the purpose of our Central Intelligence and Defense Intelligence is to mouth the words the president wants spoken, and not to defense this country?

BAER: The attrition rate is horrendous at the CIA as of today. People are leaving in—they‘re calling me, looking for jobs. And, you know, if they‘re calling me, they‘re in trouble.

MATTHEWS: Well, you know, whatever you think about it, we need intelligence. We need it more than ever.

(CROSSTALK)

BAER: And, by the way, this director is much better than anyone in the past. He‘s really trying to control...

MATTHEWS: Will he stand up against the ideologues in this administration, the Scooter Libbys and the Doug Feiths?

BAER: No. The Pentagon is still preeminent.

MATTHEWS: So, they still call them up and tell them what they want?

(CROSSTALK)

BAER: They have all the money. They have the satellites. They have got the intercepts.

MATTHEWS: You know, I wish Capitol Hill—you know, it‘s spending a lot of time on the U.S. attorneys issue. I wish they would start calling people like Doug Feith and Scooter, who knows people up there, and say, how did we get in this war? Just for the history books, just to get it written down—nobody is going to jail. What happened?

BAER: Somebody has got to be held responsible. We‘re going to there 10 years from now. There‘s going to be tens of thousands killed.

MATTHEWS: That‘s the...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: The worst thing you can say about this policy is, it‘s very hard to deal with it now. The worst thing you can say, we went into a boxed canyon, and now there is no good way out.

BAER: There is no way out.

MATTHEWS: And that‘s the problem. That wasn‘t good policy...

BAER: Trillions and trillions of dollars, and people.

MATTHEWS: ... to put us where we can‘t get out.

BAER: Can‘t get out.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18022551/