{"id":40243,"date":"2022-07-14T11:21:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T19:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=40243"},"modified":"2022-07-14T11:21:34","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T19:21:34","slug":"james-clapper-gets-a-mulligan-at-carnegie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/14\/james-clapper-gets-a-mulligan-at-carnegie\/","title":{"rendered":"James Clapper Gets a Mulligan at Carnegie"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Carnegie Endowment has made a stab at rehabbing James Clapper, whose imagery analysis unit lied us into the war on Iraq. For Clapper\u2019s second try, Carnegie used the title (now get this) \u201cGetting the Intel Right With James Clapper, July 11, 2022,”<\/em><\/p>\n

On Nov. 13, 2018, Clapper appeared at Carnegie hawking his memoir, \u201cFacts and Fears: Hard Truths From a Life in Intelligence,”<\/em> in which he openly admits to making the cardinal sin in the intelligence-analysis trade \u2013 cooking intelligence to the taste of policy makers. Hard truths, indeed.<\/p>\n

That Nov. 2018 talk was not virtual; there was ample time for Q & A. I had read Clapper\u2019s book; then-President of Carnegie, William Burns (now CIA director), indulged my questioning for as long as he could, then moved to rescue Clapper. (See: Clapper\u2019s Credibility Collapses<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In an unusually candid section of his book, Clapper gingerly places the blame for \u201cthe failure\u201d to find (non-existent WMD) \u201cwhere it belongs – squarely on the shoulders of the administration members who were pushing a narrative of a rogue WMD program in Iraq and on the intelligence officers, including me, who were so eager to help that we found what wasn\u2019t really there.\u201d<\/span><\/strong> [Emphasis added.]<\/p>\n

Clapper goes on to explain in his book:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 we heard that Vice President Cheney was pushing the Pentagon for intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and then the order came down to NIMA [the National Imagery and Mapping Agency] to find<\/strong> (emphasis in the book)<\/em> the WMD sites. We set to work, analyzing imagery to eventually identify, with varying degrees of confidence, more than 950 sites where we assessed there might be WMDs or a WMD connection. We drew on all of NIMA\u2019s skill sets \u2026 and it was all wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo support his [Secretary of State Colin Powell\u2019s February 5, 2003] speech, NIMA (which Clapper headed)<\/em> had gone through the difficult process of declassifying satellite images of trucks arriving at WMD sites just ahead of the weapons inspectors to move materials before they could be found, and my team also produced computer-generated images of trucks fitted out as \u2018mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.\u2019 Those images, possibly more than any other substantiation he presented, carried the day with the international community and Americans alike.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, it was Clapper who was responsible for those computer-generated images.<\/p>\n

That was all wrong too.<\/p>\n

A Specialist on Russia?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Typically, Clapper also saluted when \u201cthe order came down\u201d from President Obama in the fall of 2016 to find<\/em><\/strong> \u201cintelligence\u201d to support the narrative that Russia was interfering in the 2016 election. Evidence? Shemvidence! It turns out that such subversive behavior fit in well with Clapper\u2019s familiarity with what Clapper had learned about Russian genetics as well as its \u201chistorical practices and techniques,”<\/p>\n

During an interview with NBC\u2019s Chuck Todd<\/a> on May 28, 2017, the retired James Clapper talked about \u201ceverything else we knew the Russians were doing to interfere with the election\u201d \u2026 \u201cAnd just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique.<\/em><\/strong> So, we were concerned.\u201d [Emphasis added.]<\/p>\n

I suppose one can give Clapper the benefit of the doubt and concede that he may truly believe what he says about the Russians. His lying about other important issues, however, shows a rather dismissive attitude toward the truth. In fact, he has a record<\/a> of perjury.<\/p>\n

During sworn congressional testimony in March 2013, he claimed that NSA does not \u201cwittingly\u201d collect data on millions of Americans. The revelations from Edward Snowden\u2019s leaks almost immediately disproved<\/a> that claim and revealed that NSA was illegally<\/a> spying on millions of Americans as part of a mass surveillance program.<\/p>\n

Will Carnegie\u2019s confab help rehab the ubiquitous James Clapper, who is now a \u201csecurity analyst\u201d for CNN? It probably will help with those who know little else about him. Readers are invited to judge for themselves \u2013 to the point of watching his do-over at Carnegie; personally, I did not have the stomach for it.<\/p>\n