formed analysis to policy makers to allow those policy makers to make the best informed decisions. that's the way the system is supposed to work. but what happens when policy makers ignore the analysis even worse? what happens when policy makers discount the analysis and then seek out false analysis to support their preconceived policies? i'll tell you what happens. it leads to war. i'm john, curiosity when you're watching the whistleblowers the news. welcome to the whistleblowers. i'm john kerry. aku, it's no secret that the american government during the george w bush administration made up its mind to go to war with iraq on false pretenses. the white house accused saddam hussein of building and deploying weapons of mass destruction that just simply wasn't true. the white house accused saddam hussein of being in league with us some a been ludden and al qaeda. that also wasn't true. george w bush and vice president dick cheney wanted to overthrow saddam. they didn't care

what the truth was. we're going to talk about how that cynical decision led to war with the whistleblower who tried to stop it. were joined by air force lieutenant colonel karen quite cowski. karen, welcome to the show. thanks so much for being with us. you were raised in a patriotic christian republican home, and you freely entered into public service. as soon as you became an adult, karen, you join the military and you were commissioned as an officer. you eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and you retired after 21 years of service in the u. s. air force and at the national security agency. like all national security whistleblowers, you took your oath to the constitution seriously. and in the prelude to the iraq war, you spoke out about the corruption of political influence on the decision to go to war with iraq. tell us what that was like, what was it that led you to speak out? well,

it actually started at the end of the cold war. i was in the military course. and i'm that my expectations were course that as the warsaw pact had done collapsed. and the soviet union was a soviet union anymore, that nato would actually shrink and become a much smaller organization. and instead it was the opposite. so that surprised me . i didn't, i didn't really, i didn't really understand why that was. and then of course they launched into us and nato wars was that was the balcony. so i was a little bit like that kind of woke me up a little bit like i expected one thing and something else happened. and i then, of course, worked in an essay. and so the things that an essay was doing were unconstitutional, even when i was there. and, and i, and i didn't know i'm not a techie, but just some of the things that we talked about us doing. i'm, we're problem a constitutional problem and yet nobody seemed to care that, that,

that was an issue. we just, you know, we wouldn't talk about that, but it wasn't really an issue. and then of course, so my last tour of course was at the office, the secretary defense enough policy. and we will look, i was working north africa. so we were sharing office space was the people doing the iraq and iran desks and that kind of thing. so i guess i had become a little more tired of just using the government to play your games. i mean, this is what people seem to be doing these, these public servants, these bureaucrats. i'm not so much the guys in uniform. i guess i was allied with them and many of us would talk about, you know, none of this makes any sense, but you know, that's what they're doing. so what we're doing didn't have anything to do with national defense. increasingly i came to understand that and then especially what i saw in those final years as the de run up to the invasion of iraq. i saw actual

because i had access to the intelligence and the information. i could look at something on my desk classified secret and top secret. and the next day i would see the exact same thing in the new york times. and i knew i didn't share it. so who was, you know, doing it and, and who was celebrating it and, you know, we, i think it was, it had nothing to do with defense. it had to do is we have a military. let's play with it to make our own personal wish discuss to and who, who these people will neocons, which had been around for a while. been around since reagan, certainly, if not sooner and before then. and they were certainly populating the pentagon when i worked there. and, and they stayed throughout the bush administration, a stating at the obama administration. and they are, they stayed in the trumping station of john bolton, sir, to special security adviser and, and they're in there in the biden administration. so these people, the people that pay for them, they don't been in service for

a while. you pretty much lose patience with it. and so i, i really had overtime begun to trust my own gut and my own judgment. and it was not a problem for me to seek out ways to, to share the information that i had. it didn't even, it didn't bother me and i was eager to do it. you and i both worked with people from the defense department's office of special plans or o s p in the run up to the iraq war. this was an unusual and highly politicized group. in the defense department, that was led by a close former aid to vice president dick cheney by the name of bill ludy. i found ludy to be a dangerous ideologue and i think you did too. it was ludy and his cohorts in the office of special plans who pushed the idea of admit chelsea, an iraqi dissidents and one of the most corrupt people i have ever met in my life as a possible replacement for saddam hussein. when chela be fell apart under the weight of his own corruption, the cia dropped him. but bill ludy and

o s p continued to support shelby. and the notion that chelsea could lead men into battle in iraq. that of course was a pipe dream. tell us what things were like in o. s p at that time, tell us about how the intelligence community analysis on iraq was politicized. in order to support a war agenda. they took little bits and pieces of intel, some approved and, and validated until in some just ra ra, information you know, we would think of it is stuff we went many's paper, i'm unconfirmed things, and they, they promoted a storyline. they created a back story and promoted a story line that um you know, would, would help them do what they wanted to do. which of course, was to install a puppet, to get rid of sodomy, st, who really was standing up for not not, we're not was seeing that your rumsfeld was buddies with him only a few years before that. but whatever, you know, saddam hussein was, was

a nationalist in many ways he was standing up for a strong, a racking. why did he and you know, he's fighting years ago before with kuwait because of oil because he says this is a national resource. and so he's doing things that, um oh and of course decided to go off the petro dollar. that's really dangerous. but dumb. united states that isn't pleasing i, the states not now, not then, not 40 years before that. so this hot, you know, charlie b i, they said, well, we'll go, he'll do what we say will. we'll sponsor him. you know, it's funny, i hate to say the split job. it is, it shall be or you know, kolinski which, why am i talking about? i don't, i don't even know but this pattern that the new kinds of people like you know, john bolton, again i mentioned him because he says what's hard to do cuz yours are a lot of hard work to conduct these schools. cuz we've done it before. well, course that's, that's what they do. they figure out how they can control another country and

specifically on other countries resources. and of course with iraq, those resources are primarily oil, but also geography. and they wanted it, and he would, they couldn't work with some, with the who same they could work with chalabi. they didn't have any other guy. so they nurture up this image. the storyline, hey, here's this guy. he's a freedom fighter. he's, you know, he system, he's a democrat, he's all these people, he's all these so, you know, the people love him in a wreck, which of course, i mean the stuff was even the until that we had was obviously false. but it didn't matter because if you could put it on the front page of the new york times in the washington post, you could influence congress. you could influence think tanks, you could, you could shape a fantasy. and then, and then try to make that happen. and again, you know, i think that's pretty serious to use the military. i don't think it's,

i think if you got to kill people, if you're gonna have a war and i be for a serious reason, it ought to be for a valid national defense justification. i mean, i'm still, i'm old fashioned. i think if, if this country goes to war, the congress should declare war, you know, that's what the constitution says. these folks, i don't believe any of that. in fact, they are not even familiar with the constitution. that is a dead letter to them. they are, they play a game of self enrichment, of course, an advocacy of, of philosophy, of a. i hate to say world domination, but certainly at the time of middle east domination and know shall be, was part of that. they sold it, but it's a created story. and of course, so you know, when child died of some years ago i, i wrote a not really tongue in cheek obituary, but i did write a column for lew rockwell and, you know, i mean, he was a tool that the neocons used

a willing tool of course he believes the propaganda, but they, you know, it's the effort that they put into promoting their fantasies and the things that they use and the people that they kill in the money that they spend to promote their fantasies. again, none of it is constitutional and none of it is, is moral. none of it is right. and yet it hasn't stopped. it has continued shelby's one example. you're watching the whistle blowers were speaking with former us air force, colonel and pentagon intelligence analyst, karen quick koski. when we get back from a short break, we'll ask her about the fallout from that faithful decision to go to war with iraq . stay tuned. will be right back with. 2 2 2 2

ah ah ah, with ah, with what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is often very dramatic. development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successfully very difficult time time to sit

in a room, a bunch. i should to belong with mr. chisel on the, on the wall. g sequential. and so for you to he is new, was in the wm, which is a cut that sample understood. yet are you with your promotional such as a christian stuff to deal with. this is a line that will play yours.

welcome back to the whistle blows. i'm john curiosity were speaking to former u. s. air force lieutenant colonel and pentagon intelligence analyst, karen quite cowski about the decision to go to war in iraq based on false and politicized intelligence. karen, thanks again for being with us. karen in 2015 upon i've read shelby's death. you wrote a piece for lew rockwell, dot com saying that in retrospect, the period just before the iraq war was something of an age of innocence. you wrote, quote, as painful as it was to watch the u. s. government plunge into the iraq war based on false w. m. d warnings raised in part by chelsea and his iraqi national congress. there was still a sense of hope back then that the truth could be told and the culprits could be held accountable. that seems now to have been a naive dream in 2003 shelby was on track to become the new leader of iraq. just as soon as paul wolfowitz is projected cakewalk, that was what he called,

the war was finished. towards this end, he was using and being used by the neoconservative cabal of bush cheney appointees . and the pentagon, the national security council, and the state department, unquote. and then you said something that strikes me as critically important even today. you said that many of the people who dragged us into war in 2003 continued to advise the obama administration as late as 2015. and some of those people are still in government today. is it even possible to save ourselves. busy from warmongers and war criminals, when they're practically embedded, permanently in the government. no. as long as they are embedded permanently which we have seen. and it's not just victorian england, it's lots of up there and permanently embedded in the government. and it is impossible to do it as long as they are there to have a different foreign policy. so if you want to different foreign policy, these individuals not just their philosophy because you know, it's

a free country is free speech. you can think what you want to think, but neoconservatism is not what the american people want. that's not what they believe in. that's not the foreign policy they wish to pursue. and yet we have non elected bureaucrats appointees who persist in is revolving door between government service. think tank, government service think take sometimes of a position in congress back to the government service. can't be fired, keep getting appointed, keep getting confirmed in some cases. i mean there are confirming, i mean this is a different subject, but remember when they confirmed a gene, a hassle, what is the process? what is the purpose of this process? if they can confirm that one on a wire confirmation, just to just pick the people you want, put them in there. why? why rubber stamp it's? it's humiliating. but yeah, these folks have to go and our foreign policy in particular military policy. this is a foreign policy,

i am talking about military policy. it seems like everything is aggressive, militaristic, policy, state department contributes to it. some of the other agencies contribute to the d, a, d, intel, c i. they all contribute to a foreign slash military slash security policy. they take trillions of dollars a year. they cost trillions of dollars a year and they don't do any good. so i'm ready for radical change. and i think really that, that they have to go and the budgets have to be shrunk to the levels that the populace in this country believe we should have. and also what the constitution envision, which didn't envision a standing army. it didn't vision. if we went to war, it would be a people for congress would declare that were, you know, we didn't have that vietnam either in declared war since we're, we're to, so you take the non very unpopular war and popular. and that unpopularity was memorialized in music and poetry and books and,

and movies and riots and people getting killed by national car, you know, was not a popular war. and it was also, we could have prevented it if they had consulted with the congress and let the house have a vote and say, do we want to make war in vietnam? if they would have to justify it a little like a republic. if you want to have a bill of rights and some of these things in the framework, we treasure, you know, we've lasted for 240 years. it's kind of a good thing. if you want to keep it, we've got to do something about washington because washington does not abide by that in any way, shape or form. they don't respect it. and they basically pay lip service to the people's wishes. and m u b, like i say, cut their budget so you know, just and, and they may end up cutting it. but if the country goes bankrupt, where they're going to do pay them 1st, it probably will. but i don't think that the,

the expense that the united states has, and, you know, this multi polar world that is already here. but let's say we're, we don't wanna admit that it's coming. okay, it's, it's either it's already here which it is, or you can say it's coming. but in any case, united states won't be the global policeman. that may be an opportunity to have a more defensive and peaceful and pro trade foreign policy where we can share the good things that make america great. but we're not trying to control everybody else's resources, which again, is totally what these towards her pell. you know, we're not fighting for democracy. it, we've never, i can't think of any, maybe we have and you may know, but i can't think of any time we fight for democracy. we have fought for other people's resources. karen, you were inside the pentagon on 911. you later wrote that following the attack, and as the u. s. approached, were the rock you quote, witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within o. s p u. syrup measured and carefully considered assessments,

and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis, promulgate what we're in, act falsehoods, to both congress and the executive office of the president, unquote. later you went on to become a source for knight ridder. the news agency that broke many of the stories related to the iraq war, knight ridder was always skeptical of the information being released by the bush administration and the pentagon. you also appeared in the award winning documentary film. why we fight? how did you make that transition from making your revelations within the chain of command to going public? well, i mean, it was an incredible amount of frustration. i know is what seeing how information was being misused and manipulated in order to get us into a war. i mean, an actual, you know, not just like she and we say, oh, you cranes fighting a war. and we're giving them billions and billions of dollars. this was

a war where americans were going to go over there and fight. you know, something that, that should be a serious matter and it should be based on fact. and yet it, all this was created. you know, stories were told to different shane, so that one guy would call the other guy and say, well, can you confirm this? oh, sure, i saw the same thing, must be true. it was a severe amount of frustration. and again, you know, if you have you been in the military for, you know, 15 or 16 years, you kind of have seen things. you kind of at least i had grown into my own i again, i trusted my assessment of things where i might not of if i'd been younger, but i'd seen enough that i did. i did this, this makes no sense. and plus, of course it was just me, i had lots of friends who would tell me their end of the student speak out, but i didn't feel that way. i was going to retire was playing to retires at my earliest opportunity, even before this. so,

and i wasn't going to work for these folks afterwards and i think that makes a difference. and you know, another thing, and i don't know if we've talked about it if it's been observed, but it's kind of a i was the bread winner for my family. for many, many years, but they say that women, this is maybe it's a stereotype, maybe it's changed, but i'm born in 1960. so i came up to the eighty's. you know, that women don't define, they're worse as much through their employment through their jobs. as maybe men do so for me, i didn't see this as this is really going to ruin my career. i mean, it would have if i stayed there, no dad, i couldn't stayed in but them. but i didn't see that as a huge issue wasn't to me, it was far more important to to really share the information out with somebody that could see if it was worth anything and maybe combat some of the lies just that

that felt important to me. but also i didn't, i wasn't totally, you know, i wasn't so worried about my reputation as a, as an officer, per se. because and again, because i believed in the constitution, and i do think, and this is, you know, we see this, i'm not a big time whistleblower. like who's, who's really suffered from it. like you have and also snowden, you know, but all of us had some us, we put value in the constitution. we thought it was a serious document. we thought it was a document that our country would works would, would live by. it's particularly our leaders. and so on it, you don't really, i mean, it makes you angry when you see that it's being ignored, that they don't care that there are countries going down a track that is lawless. and based on purposeful and fantastical

lies and a manipulation of the media and the manipulation of congress is very upsetting. but i think it was upsetting to a lot of people, but again, i didn't see this is oh, this is going to ruin my career. and then people will be talking about me, they'll say, oh, what, you know, she, she had a great group but then she just threw it away. i didn't even that didn't even cross my mind. it had nothing to do with anything. and i, i wish we had more people who really would care more about their principles and what they know to be right and wrong. even if i don't agree with them, i don't care. i wish they would, would people just would trust their own sense of right and wrong. more than, than what their boss is. tell them because my boss is deluded was my direct boss. so what, you know, what does that say? yes, you should, i should. i have listened him and, and looked up to him in such a way. oh, he knows better than me. i don't think so. and i hope,

i hope i hope that generations behind us, younger people than us have embraced that attitude, that they can make their own judgment. they can use their own brain. they can. now, you know, you want to be crazy, was it? you know, if you're ignorant and you think of crazy, think crazy things and you believe him. ok fine. but really take the risk because our country has got a really, really bad packs and it's not just been not recently. i mean, it's been over the past, really this past century, but my whole life time over 960 started military life when i was in my early twenties, really my whole life time. i have witnessed terrible irrigation of the constitution and terrible a terrible future. a terrible presence of our country, bad behavior by united states of america. and it's, it's in, it's not right. i can't be proud of it and i should be able to be proud of my

country. we should all, we have the right to be proud of our country and the fact that we can't mean social, they still work digit. ah, one can only hope that governments and the policy makers who lead them can learn from the mistakes of the past. but that may be too much to ask. we will probably never find ourselves in a position where people in positions of authority or power do something simply because it's the right thing to do. and sometimes when they make their decisions, especially when those decisions are based on cynical and false information, we find ourselves at war. we can't forget to that those wars no matter how short or how righteous they may seem, maintain a cost in human life. ah, ah.

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