Ex-NSA Director, US Intelligence Veterans Write Open Letter To Merkel To Avoid All-Out Ukraine War
Alarmed at the
anti-Russian hysteria sweeping Washington, and the specter of a new Cold War,
U.S. intelligence veterans one of whom is none other than William Binney, the
former senior NSA crypto-mathematician who back in March 2012 blew the whistle on the NSA's
spying programs more than a year before Edward Snowden, took the unusual step of
sending the following memo dated August 30 to German Chancellor Merkel
challenging the reliability of Ukrainian and U.S. media claims about a Russian
"invasion."
MEMORANDUM FOR: Angela Merkel, Chancellor
of Germany
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Ukraine and NATO
We the undersigned are
longtime veterans of U.S. intelligence. We
take the unusual step of writing this open letter to you to ensure that you
have an opportunity to be briefed on our views prior to the NATO summit on
September 4-5.
You need to know, for example,
that accusations of a major Russian "invasion" of Ukraine appear not
to be supported by reliable intelligence. Rather, the "intelligence"
seems to be of the same dubious, politically "fixed" kind used 12
years ago to "justify" the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. We saw no
credible evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq then; we see no
credible evidence of a Russian invasion now. Twelve years ago, former
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, mindful of the flimsiness of the evidence on
Iraqi WMD, refused to join in the attack on Iraq. In our view, you should be
appropriately suspicions of charges made by the US State Department and NATO
officials alleging a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
President Barack Obama
tried yesterday to cool the rhetoric of his own senior diplomats and the
corporate media, when he publicly described recent activity in the Ukraine, as
"a continuation of what’s been taking place for months now … it’s not
really a shift."
Obama, however, has only
tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack
much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian
invective for a policy. One year ago, hawkish State Department officials and
their friends in the media very nearly got Mr. Obama to launch a major attack
on Syria based, once again, on "intelligence" that was dubious, at
best.
Largely because of the
growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be
spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders
of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days. More
important, we believe that this likelihood can be avoided, depending on the
degree of judicious skepticism you and other European leaders bring to the NATO
summit next week.
Experience With Untruth
Hopefully, your advisers
have reminded you of NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s checkered
record for credibility. It appears to us that Rasmussen’s speeches continue to
be drafted by Washington. This was abundantly clear on the day before the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when, as Danish Prime Minister, he told his
Parliament: "Iraq
has weapons of mass destruction. This is not something we just believe. We
know."
Photos can be worth a thousand
words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting,
analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well
as other kinds of intelligence. Suffice it to say that the images released by
NATO on August 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with
invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by
Colin Powell at the UN on February 5, 2003 that, likewise, proved nothing.
That same day, we warned
President Bush that our former colleague analysts were "increasingly
distressed at the politicization of intelligence" and told him flatly,
"Powell’s presentation does not come close" to justifying war. We
urged Mr. Bush to "widen the discussion … beyond the circle of those
advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from
which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be
catastrophic."
Consider Iraq today. Worse
than catastrophic. Although President Vladimir Putin has until now showed
considerable reserve on the conflict in the Ukraine, it behooves us to remember that
Russia, too, can "shock and awe." In our view, if
there is the slightest chance of that kind of thing eventually happening to
Europe because of Ukraine, sober-minded leaders need to think this through very
carefully.
If the photos that NATO
and the US have released represent the best available "proof" of an
invasion from Russia, our
suspicions increase that a major effort is under way to fortify arguments for
the NATO summit to approve actions that Russia is sure to regard as provocative.
Caveat emptor is an expression with which you are no doubt familiar. Suffice it
to add that one should be very cautious regarding what Mr. Rasmussen, or even
Secretary of State John Kerry, are peddling.
We trust that your
advisers have kept you informed regarding the crisis in Ukraine from the
beginning of 2014, and how the possibility that Ukraine would become a member
of NATO is anathema to the Kremlin. According to a February 1, 2008 cable
(published by WikiLeaks) from the US embassy in Moscow to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, US Ambassador William Burns was called in by Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov, who explained Russia’s strong opposition to NATO membership for
Ukraine.
Lavrov warned pointedly of
"fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading
to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide
whether to intervene." Burns gave his cable the unusual title, "NYET
MEANS NYET: RUSSIA’S NATO ENLARGEMENT REDLINES," and sent it off to
Washington with IMMEDIATE precedence. Two months later, at their summit in
Bucharest NATO leaders issued a formal declaration that "Georgia and
Ukraine will be in NATO."
Just yesterday, Ukrainian
Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk used his Facebook page to claim that, with the
approval of Parliament that he has requested, the path to NATO membership is
open. Yatsenyuk, of
course, was Washington’s favorite pick to become prime minister after the
February 22 coup d’etat in Kiev. "Yats is the guy," said Assistant
Secretary of State Victoria Nuland a few weeks before the coup, in an
intercepted telephone conversation with US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey
Pyatt. You may recall that this is the same conversation in which Nuland said,
"Fuck the EU."
Timing of the Russian
"Invasion"
The conventional wisdom
promoted by Kiev just a few weeks ago was that Ukrainian forces had the upper
hand in fighting the anti-coup federalists in southeastern Ukraine, in what was
largely portrayed as a mop-up operation. But that picture of the offensive
originated almost solely from official government sources in Kiev. There were
very few reports coming from the ground in southeastern Ukraine. There was one,
however, quoting Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, that raised doubt about
the reliability of the government’s portrayal.
According to the
"press service of the President of Ukraine" on August 18, Poroshenko
called for a "regrouping of Ukrainian military units involved in the operation
of power in the East of the country. … Today we need to do the rearrangement of
forces that will defend our territory and continued army offensives," said
Poroshenko, adding, "we need to consider a new military operation in the
new circumstances."
If the "new
circumstances" meant successful advances by Ukrainian government forces,
why would it be necessary to "regroup," to "rearrange" the
forces? At about this time, sources on the ground began to report a string of
successful attacks by the anti-coup federalists against government forces.
According to these sources, it was the government army that was starting to
take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor
leadership.
Ten days later, as they
became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found
in the "Russian invasion." That is precisely when the fuzzy photos
were released by NATO and reporters like the New York Times’ Michael Gordon
were set loose to spread the word that "the Russians are coming." (Michael Gordon was one of the most
egregious propagandists promoting the war on Iraq.)
No Invasion – But Plenty
Other Russian Support
The anti-coup federalists
in southeastern Ukraine enjoy considerable local support, partly as a result of
government artillery strikes on major population centers. And we believe that
Russian support probably has been pouring across the border and includes,
significantly, excellent battlefield intelligence. But it is far from clear
that this support includes tanks and artillery at this point – mostly because
the federalists have been better led and surprisingly successful in pinning
down government forces.
At the same time, we have
little doubt that, if and when the federalists need them, the Russian tanks
will come.
This is precisely why the
situation demands a concerted effort for a ceasefire, which you know Kiev has
so far been delaying. What is to be done at this point? In our view, Poroshenko
and Yatsenyuk need to be told flat-out that membership in NATO is not in the
cards – and that NATO has no intention of waging a proxy war with Russia – and
especially not in support of the ragtag army of Ukraine. Other members of NATO
need to be told the same thing.
For the Steering Group,
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
- William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (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.)
- Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (Ret.)
- Coleen Rowley, Division Counsel & Special Agent, FBI (ret.)
- Ann Wright, Col., US Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned)
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