OBAMA SHOULD RELEASE UKRAINE EVIDENCE ON MH, said SENIOR U.S. INTELLIGENCE
OFFICERS:
By Consortium News / The Washington's Blog / The 4th Media
News | Wednesday,
July 30, 2014
Senior U.S. Intelligence Officers: Obama Should Release Ukraine
Evidence
Preface:
With the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine turning a local
civil war into a U.S. confrontation with Russia, former high-level U.S.
intelligence veterans released a statement today urging President Obama to
release what evidence he has about the tragedy and silence the exaggeration and
rush to judgment. (The whole post is a must-read; but we at Washington’s Blog
have added bolding for emphasis.)
Signatory
Bill Binney – the former senior technical director at the NSA, and a man who
battled the Soviet Union for decades – tells Washington’s Blog:
In my analytic efforts to predict intentions and
capabilities down through the years, I always made sure that I had
multi-factors verifying what I was asserting. So far, I don’t see
that discipline here in this administration or the IC [i.e. the United
States intelligence community].
Posted with permission.
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Intelligence on Shoot-Down of Malaysian Plane
Executive Summary
U.S.–Russian intensions are building
in a precarious way over Ukraine, and we are far from certain that your
advisers fully appreciate the danger of escalation. The New York Times and
other media outlets are treating sensitive issues in dispute as flat-fact,
taking their cue from U.S. government sources.
Twelve days after the shoot-down of
Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, your administration still has issued no
coordinated intelligence assessment summarizing what evidence exists to
determine who was responsible – much less to
convincingly support repeated claims that the plane was downed by a
Russian-supplied missile in the hands of Ukrainian separatists.
Your administration has not provided
any satellite imagery showing that the separatists had such weaponry, and there
are several other “dogs that have not barked.” Washington’s
credibility, and your own, will continue to erode, should you be unwilling – or
unable – to present more tangible evidence behind administration claims. In
what follows, we put this in the perspective of former intelligence
professionals with a cumulative total of 260 years in various parts of U.S.
intelligence:
We, the undersigned former
intelligence officers want to share with you our concern about the evidence
adduced so far to blame Russia for the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines
Flight 17. We are retired from government service and none of us is on the
payroll of CNN, Fox News, or any other outlet. We intend this memorandum to
provide a fresh, different perspective.
As veteran intelligence analysts
accustomed to waiting, except in emergency circumstances, for conclusive
information before rushing to judgment, we believe that the charges against
Russia should be rooted in solid, far more convincing evidence.
And that goes in spades with respect to inflammatory incidents like the
shoot-down of an airliner. We are also troubled by the amateurish
manner in which fuzzy and flimsy evidence has been served up – some it
via “social media.”
As intelligence professionals we are
embarrassed by the unprofessional use of partial intelligence information. As Americans, we find ourselves hoping that, if you
indeed have more conclusive evidence, you will find a way to make it public
without further delay. In charging Russia with being directly or indirectly
responsible, Secretary of State John Kerry has been particularly definitive.
Not so the evidence. His statements seem premature and bear earmarks of
an attempt to “poison the jury pool.”
Painting Russia Black
We see an eerie resemblance to
an earlier exercise in U.S. “public diplomacy” from which valuable lessons can
be learned by those more interested in the truth than in exploiting tragic
incidents for propaganda advantage. We refer to the behavior of the Reagan
administration in the immediate aftermath of the shoot-down of Korean
Airlines Flight 007 over Siberia on August 30, 1983. We sketch out below a
short summary of that tragic affair, since we suspect you have not been
adequately briefed on it. The parallels will be obvious to you.
An advantage of our long tenure as
intelligence officers is that we remember what we have witnessed first hand;
seldom do we forget key events in which we played an analyst or other role. To
put it another way, most of us “know exactly where we were” when a Soviet
fighter aircraft shot down Korean Airlines passenger flight 007 over Siberia on
August 30, 1983, over 30 years ago. At the time, we were intelligence officers
on “active duty.” You were 21; many of those around you today were still
younger.
Thus, it seems possible that you may
be learning how the KAL007 affair went down, so to speak, for the first time;
that you may now become more aware of the serious implications for U.S.-Russian
relations regarding how the downing of Flight 17 goes down; and that you will
come to see merit in preventing ties with Moscow from falling into a state of
complete disrepair. In our view, the strategic danger here dwarfs all
other considerations.
Hours after the tragic shoot-down on
Aug. 30, 1983, the Reagan administration used its very accomplished propaganda
machine to twist the available intelligence on Soviet culpability for the
killing of all 269 people aboard KAL007. The airliner was shot down after it
strayed hundreds of miles off course and penetrated Russia’s airspace over
sensitive military facilities in Kamchatka and Sakhalin Island. The Soviet
pilot tried to signal the plane to land, but the KAL pilots did not respond to
the repeated warnings. Amid confusion about the plane’s identity – a U.S. spy
plane had been in the vicinity hours earlier – Soviet ground control ordered
the pilot to fire.
The Soviets soon realized they had
made a horrendous mistake. U.S. intelligence also knew from sensitive
intercepts that the tragedy had resulted from a blunder, not from a willful act
of murder (much as on July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian
civilian airliner over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, an act which
President Ronald Reagan dismissively explained as an “understandable
accident”).
To make the very blackest case
against Moscow for shooting down the KAL airliner, the Reagan administration suppressed
exculpatory evidence from U.S. electronic intercepts.
Washington’s mantra became “Moscow’s deliberate downing of a civilian passenger plane.” Newsweekran a cover emblazoned with the headline “Murder in the Sky.” (Apparently, not much has changed;Time’s cover this week features “Cold War II” and “Putin’s dangerous game.” The cover story by Simon Shuster, “In Russia, Crime Without Punishment,” would merit an A-plus in William Randolph Hearst’s course “Yellow Journalism 101.”)
When KAL007 was shot down, Alvin A.
Snyder, director of the U.S. Information Agency’s television and film division,
was enlisted in a concerted effort to “heap as much abuse on the Soviet Union
as possible,” as Snyder writes in his 1995 book, “Warriors of Disinformation.”
He and his colleagues also earned an
A-plus for bringing the “mainstream media” along. For example, ABC’s Ted Koppel
noted with patriotic pride, “This has been one of those occasions when there is
very little difference between what is churned out by the U.S. government
propaganda organs and by the commercial broadcasting networks.”
“Fixing” the Intelligence
Around the Policy
“The perception we wanted to convey
was that the Soviet Union had cold-bloodedly carried out a barbaric act,” wrote
Snyder, adding that the Reagan administration went so far as to present a doctored
transcript of the intercepts to the United Nations Security Council on
September 6, 1983.
Only a decade later, when Snyder saw
the complete transcripts — including the portions that the Reagan
administration had hidden — would he fully realize how many of the central
elements of the U.S. presentation were false.
The intercepts showed that the
Soviet fighter pilot believed he was pursuing a U.S. spy aircraft and that he
was having trouble in the dark identifying the plane. Per instructions from
ground control, the pilot had circled the KAL airliner and tilted his wings to
order the aircraft to land. The pilot said he fired warning shots, as well.
This information “was not on the tape we were provided,” Snyder wrote.
It became abundantly clear to Snyder
that, in smearing the Soviets, the Reagan administration had presented
false accusations to the United Nations, as well as to the people of the United
States and the world. In his book, Snyder acknowledged his own role in the
deception, but drew a cynical conclusion. He wrote, “The moral of the story is
that all governments, including our own, lie when it suits their purposes. The
key is to lie first.”
The tortured attempts by your
administration and stenographers in the media to blame Russia for the downing
of Flight 17, together with John Kerry’s unenviable record for credibility,
lead us to the reluctant conclusion that the syndrome Snyder describes may also
be at work in your own administration; that is, that an ethos of
“getting your own lie out first” has replaced “ye shall know the truth.” At
a minimum, we believe Secretary Kerry displayed unseemly haste in his
determination to be first out of the starting gate.
Both Sides Cannot Be
Telling the Truth
We have always taken pride in not
shooting from the hip, but rather in doing intelligence analysis that is
evidence-based. The evidence released to date does not bear close scrutiny; it
does not permit a judgment as to which side is lying about the shoot-down of
Flight 17.
Our entire professional experience
would incline us to suspect the Russians – almost instinctively. Our more
recent experience, particularly observing Secretary Kerry injudiciousness in
latching onto one spurious report after another as “evidence,” has gone a long
way toward balancing our earlier predispositions.
It seems that whenever Kerry does
cite supposed “evidence” that can be checked –
like the forged anti-Semitic fliers distributed in eastern Ukraine or the
photos of alleged Russian special forces soldiers who allegedly slipped into
Ukraine – the “proof” goes “poof” as Kerry once said in a
different context. Still, these misrepresentations seem small peccadillos
compared with bigger whoppers like the claim Kerry made on
Aug. 30, 2013, no fewer than 35 times, that “we know” the government of Bashar
al-Assad was responsible for the chemical incidents near Damascus nine days
before.
On September 3, 2013 – following
your decision to call off the attack on Syria in order to await Congressional
authorization – Kerry was still pushing for an attack in testimony before a
thoroughly sympathetic Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. On the following day
Kerry drew highly unusual personal criticism from President Putin, who said:
“He is lying, and he knows he is lying. It is sad.”
Equally serious, during the first
week of September 2013, as you and President Vladimir Putin were putting the
final touches to the deal whereby Syrian chemical weapons would be given up for
destruction, John Kerry said something that puzzles us to this day. On
September 9, 2013, Kerry was in London, still promoting a U.S. attack on Syria
for having crossed the “Red Line” you had set against Syria’s using chemical
weapons.
At a formal press conference, Kerry
abruptly dismissed the possibility that Bashar al-Assad would ever give up his
chemical weapons, saying, “He isn’t about to do that; it can’t be done.” Just a
few hours later, the Russians and Syrians announced Syria’s agreement to do
precisely what Kerry had ruled out as impossible. You sent him back to Geneva
to sign the agreement, and it was formally concluded on September 14.
Regarding the Malaysia Airlines
shoot-down of July 17, we believe Kerry has typically rushed to
judgment and that his incredible record for credibility poses a huge
disadvantage in the diplomatic and propaganda maneuvering vis-a-vis
Russia. We suggest you call a halt to this misbegotten “public diplomacy”
offensive. If, however, you decide to press on anyway, we suggest you try to
find a less tarnished statesman or woman.
A Choice Between Two
If the intelligence on the
shoot-down is as weak as it appears judging from the fuzzy scraps that have
been released, we strongly suggest you call off the propaganda war and
await the findings of those charged with investigating the shoot-down.
If, on the other hand, your administration has more concrete, probative
intelligence, we strongly suggest that you consider approving it for release,even
if there may be some risk of damage to “sources and methods.” Too often this
consideration is used to prevent information from entering the public domain
where, as in this case, it belongs.
There have been critical junctures
in the past in which presidents have recognized the need to waive secrecy in
order to show what one might call “a decent respect for the opinions of
mankind” or even to justify military action.
As senior CIA veteran Milton Bearden
has put it, there are occasions when more damage is done to U.S.
national security by “protecting” sources and methods than by revealing them.
For instance, Bearden noted that Ronald Reagan exposed a sensitive intelligence
source in showing a skeptical world the reason for the U.S. attack on Libya in
retaliation for the April 5, 1986 bombing at the La Belle Disco in West Berlin.
That bombing killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman, and injured over
200 people, including 79 U.S. servicemen.
Intercepted messages between Tripoli
and agents in Europe made it clear that Libya was behind the attack. Here’s an
excerpt: “At 1:30 in the morning one of the acts was carried out with success,
without leaving a trace behind.”
Ten days after the bombing the U.S.
retaliated, sending over 60 Air Force fighters to strike the Libyan capital of
Tripoli and the city of Benghazi. The operation was widely seen as an attempt
to kill Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who survived, but his adopted 15-month-old
daughter was killed in the bombing, along with at least 15 other civilians.
Three decades ago, there was more
shame attached to the killing of children. As world abhorrence grew after the
U.S. bombing strikes, the Reagan administration produced the intercepted,
decoded message sent by the Libyan Peoples Bureau in East Berlin acknowledging
the “success” of the attack on the disco, and adding the ironically inaccurate
boast “without leaving a trace behind.”
The Reagan administration made the
decision to give up a highly sensitive intelligence source, its ability to
intercept and decipher Libyan communications. But once the rest of the world
absorbed this evidence, international grumbling subsided and many considered
the retaliation against Tripoli justified.
If You’ve Got the Goods…
If the U.S. has more convincing
evidence than what has so far been adduced concerning responsibility for
shooting down Flight 17, we believe it would be best to find a way to make that
intelligence public – even at the risk of compromising “sources and methods.”
Moreover, we suggest you instruct your subordinates not to cheapen U.S.
credibility by releasing key information via social medialike Twitter and
Facebook.
The reputation of the messenger for
credibility is also key in this area of “public diplomacy.” As is by now clear
to you, in our view Secretary Kerry is more liability than asset in this
regard. Similarly, with regard to Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper, his March 12, 2013 Congressional testimony under oath to what he later
admitted were “clearly erroneous” things regarding NSA collection should
disqualify him. Clapper should be kept at far remove from the Flight 17
affair.
What is needed, if you’ve got the
goods, is an Interagency Intelligence Assessment – the genre used in the past
to lay out the intelligence. We are hearing indirectly from some of our
former colleagues that what Secretary Kerry is peddling does not square with
the real intelligence. Such was the case late last August, when Kerry
created a unique vehicle he called a “Government (not Intelligence) Assessment”
blaming, with no verifiable evidence, Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attacks near
Damascus, as honest intelligence analysts refused to go along and, instead,
held their noses.
We believe you need to seek out
honest intelligence analysts now and hear them out. Then, you may be persuaded
to take steps to curb the risk that relations with Russia might
escalate from “Cold War II” into an armed confrontation. In all candor, we
see little reason to believe that Secretary Kerry and your other advisers
appreciate the enormity of that danger.
In our most recent (May 4) memorandum to
you, Mr. President, we cautioned that if the U.S. wished “to stop a bloody
civil war between east and west Ukraine and avert Russian military intervention
in eastern Ukraine, you may be able to do so before the violence hurtles
completely out of control.” On July 17, you joined the top leaders of Germany,
France, and Russia in calling for a ceasefire. Most informed observers believe
you have it in your power to get Ukrainian leaders to agree. The longer Kiev
continues its offensive against separatists in eastern Ukraine, the more such
U.S. statements appear hypocritical.
We reiterate our recommendations of
May 4, that you remove the seeds of this confrontation by publicly disavowing
any wish to incorporate Ukraine into NATO and that you make it clear that you
are prepared to meet personally with Russian President Putin without delay to
discuss ways to defuse the crisis and recognize the legitimate interests of the
various parties. The suggestion of an early summit got extraordinary resonance
in controlled and independent Russian media. Not so in “mainstream” media in
the U.S. Nor did we hear back from you.
The courtesy of a reply is
requested.
Prepared by VIPS Steering Group
William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)
Larry Johnson, CIA & State Department (ret.)
Edward Loomis, NSA, Cryptologic Computer Scientist (ret.)
David MacMichael, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA analyst (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Middle East (ret.)
Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
Peter Van Buren, U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Officer (ret)
Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret); Foreign Service Officer (ret.)
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