Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret) states: "We’re going to wake up one morning soon, very soon, and we will be at war with Iran." An interesting and illuminating interview with a woman who clearly has the credentials to discuss American foreign policy in the Persian Gulf. For spazzes, those of you feeling lazy, or for those wearing beer goggles there is an MP3 recording of the interview at the top of the page.

Truthdig website

 

This comes from that interview with the Lt Col:

And we don’t even have status of forces agreements with any legitimate government in Iraq to support those bases. They are illegal bases, okay. But yes, they’re gonna stay, absolutely, they’re gonna stay. And I’ll tell you, there are guys that have been with this administration for awhile, people, in fact one of the guys was an Air Force General that was involved with the Kurds ten years ago, he’s retired now, but he was actually the guy, his name escapes me for the moment, but he [Jay Garner] was [Paul] Bremer’s predecessor for a short period of time. And he was fired, and Bremer came in and took over in Baghdad as part of the reconstruction phase. This is in the Spring of 2003. And this guy gave an interview in Government Exec Magazine, February 2004, he said “we will be in Iraq, and the American people need to get with this program, we will be in Iraq like we were in the Philippines for anywhere from 20 to 30 more years. That’s the time frame that we’re looking at. And that is the life span of the bases that we’ve constructed there. Yeah, we are not leaving these bases, and a Democratic president, I don’t care who they are, will keep those bases there. They will justify them and they will use them and we love that. We love it. So it’s not about what the American people think is right or wrong, it’s not about if we got lied to, what matters is, they did what they wanted to do, and as Bush says, and as Cheney says, “it’s quite the success.” And this is very frightening. Because none of this has ever been admitted to the American people, it’s only been hinted at by people that know. And of course the facts speak for themselves. The facts are, we are in Iraq, we have the finest military installations in the world, the newest military installations in the world, and we’re not leaving them. We’re not turning them over to a Shiite government, we’re not turning them over to a Sunni government, we’re not turning them over to a Kurdish government. We’re not doing that. They are American bases. We’ve got our flag there. And this is kind of the way they used to do things, I guess back in the Middle Ages. Maybe the Dark Ages. A king decided he wanted to go do something, he went and did it. And this is George Bush. We call him an elected president. I mean, he’s operating much as kings have operated in the past.

Some people think Cheney is off his head when he says Iraq is a success.
But the above explains what Cheney really means by success. He is off his head alright and then again he isn't.

 

Where is Sergy when you want him?

 

Yes that to cheap seats.
It goes some way to explain how Britain can withdraw forces from Iraq without any open altercation with the U.S. Britain is not wanting to be part of the Iran war and our leaving Iraq may be very well taken as a sign that America wants to be free to hit Iran.

 

You wouldn't call her a whistle-blower? She was in the military for years and worked within a military capacity in the Pentagon for a number of years. Whilst she may be a citizen now, her past gives her the credibility to comment on these matters from a more esoteric perspective. Only time will tell, but I sadly believe that a wider gulf conflict is inevitable. The good old US of A is on its last legs as the dominant world power and is going to try everything it can to sustain its hegemonic status. I hope my opinions come back to bite me on the ass, big time.

 

My bold

She left in 2003

 

She was, IIRC, detailed to work in the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon- the people who cherry picked all the intelligence on Iraq and second guessed the real intelligence agencies. I believe she was there as a Public Affairs Officer- i.e. spin doctor. Her disillusionment with the way the Administration was pushing for war in 2002-2003 led her to resign. She was certainly one of the first to go public with what OSP was up to. She was interviewed on "Why We Fight" in 2005.

 

She's a nutcase. She is associated with this guy- Lyndon LaRouche.
http://www.larouchepub.com/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1406272/posts

 

Michael Rubin works at AEI, so you can guess which way they're going to swing- when PNAC folded up, that's where the neocons found their new home. He's also one of the main neo-cons pushing the Iran thing. Oh, and he's Jewish too, so if you do buy into the Zionist neo-con conspiracy thing you couldn't really consider him an impartial source.

What's more, for a scholar, he should really be able to do a better job of providing evidence to support his point (if he actually has any) because the best he can manage in the Op-Ed he wrote is a "he-said/she-said" piece. Hardly compelling by anybody's standards.

(Yes, LaRouche is a nutcase- I don't argue with you there, but what evidence do you have to link Kwiatkowski with him?)

 

http://www.nationalreview.com/rubin/rubin200405180836.asp

 

Interesting stuff, worthy of consideration. Thanks for pointing it out. Now, if only we can find a corroborating source from outside the neo-con cabal. Let's face it, how many things has Michael Rubin been right about in the last 5 years? He went from AEI, where he helped dream up George's Middle Eastern Adventure; to OSP, where he helped sell everyone on the idea; to everybody's favorite people in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority... and didn't they do a bang up job?

Do you think there's a chance that there may just be a little bit of Cover Your Ass activity going on?

By the way, here's what the non-partisan Sourcewatch has to say about her:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Karen_Kwiatkowski

Attacked by Rubin, John Gibson of Fcuks News, the Communications director of the RNC and the second dumbest guy in the Senate*, John Kyl (R-AZ)- to be honest I can't think of a way somebody can be better credentialled.

Oh, and it was my mistake, she wasn't in OSP, she was in NESA- who had OSP looking over their shoulders morning, noon and night and feeding them talking points.

*The dumbest guy in the Senate, by bipartisan consensus (Just go to the Hawk and Dove at happy hour and poll the customers if you don't believe me) is Jeff Sessions (R-AL).

 

This is a fascinating thread, one that explores the relationship between the servant of the State, the elected government, and the greater public interest.
That said, however, I feel that this subject could benefit from some boorishness and ignorance- which is where I come in
So, here goes: do you think that she would get it, or what? I reckon she bangs like a sh*thouse door in a gale...

 

Sorry, but you've been beaten to it - the Republicans are driving policy, don't forget.