The mission of Ray McGovern: former CIA analyst tours country saying U.S. not the solution in Iraq, it's the problem

Back before the term became suspect, Ray McGovern would have been called a crusader. A man with an unmistakable sense of mission, he likes to quote the words chiseled into the marble entrance of the CIA headquarters where he worked for 27 years: "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

Now retired from the agency, McGovern is a founding member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which he describes as a kind of CIA in exile. "In Biblical terms, we'd be called a remnant," said Mr. McGovern, a soft-spoken man with an aptitude for the artful phrase.

Since 2003, he and other former professionals from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, FBI, National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies have challenged the Bush administration's handling of intelligence in a series of 12 memoranda sent to the president and the press, as well as in numerous newspaper op-eds written by McGovern and other Veteran Intelligence Professionals members.

To date, McGovern mentions that he has written 175 op-eds and delivered 350 speeches. He has also made frequent appearances on radio and TV news shows such as "The Charlie Rose Show" and "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." In an interview with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, he attributed the war in Iraq to O.I.L. (oil, Israel and logistics, the last referring to U.S. military bases in Iraq).

In Washington, McGovern, a Catholic who graduated from Fordham University and holds a certificate in theology from Georgetown University as well as an MBA from Harvard, writes regularly for the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior on "Speaking Truth to Power." Both in word and action that is what he has done of late.

Last spring McGovern publicly confronted Donald Rumsfeld at a talk the secretary of defense gave. He quoted Rumsfeld's inaccurate statements on weapons of mass destruction back to him in an exchange widely broadcast by CNN and other media.

In March, disgust over Vice President Cheney's and then-CIA director Porter Goss' efforts to exempt the CIA from legislation banning torture drove McGovern to return the Intelligence Commendation medal he received upon retirement from the CIA. The medal is the highest award given by the CIA.

"That was a wrenching experience, actually," said McGovern, who used to prepare the President's Daily Brief for President George H.W. Bush and speaks proudly of his years of "honorable service" at the CIA.

Anger about the corruption of the nation's intelligence services and concern about "creeping fascism" propelled McGovern to found Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) with a handful of other professionals. The little group of five has grown to 56 members.

"It's just like the old days," said Mr. McGovern, sounding revved up to be back in the saddle. "These are people who tell it like it is: Special Forces, Ranger people, people who have served in the Middle East as attaches, as Arabic instructors. When ! talk about how we exit Iraq or what's in store if we stay the course, these are 56 people with real good reputations."

Some of his colleagues are now doing what he's doing, he said, "traveling around the country and trying to spread some truth around."

"Frankly, I'm very much aware of what happened in Germany in the '30s. I don't want my grandchildren, of whom I have six now, coming up to me when they're old enough and saying, 'Grandpa, you worked for the CIA. What was it like torturing people?' I would say I didn't torture people, and they would say as the German kids say to their parents, 'What did you do to stop it?'"

McGovern was in Missouri recently, trying to spread some truth around, speaking at local colleges and wherever he could get a venue. Invited to Missouri by a young woman who sent him an e-mall asking him if he'd consider coming to a red state, he told reporters he responded with alacrity. "I said, 'I lust after coming to a red state,'" McGovern recalled.

In Kansas City after appearances in Springfield and Weston, Mo., McGovern spoke on the topic "How we got into Iraq and how we get out." Citing two recent polls done in Iraq, one of which found that 65 percent of Iraqis said they wanted U.S. troops to leave immediately and another in which 60 percent of Iraqis said they would shoot an American on sight, McGovern noted dryly that the response was a far cry from the open arms and flowers that the proponents of the war in Iraq had suggested would greet Americans. It was a response that he said must be heeded.

McGovern offered a fourfold strategy for disengagement. It includes listening to the Iraqi people and respecting their wishes, disavowing the permanent military bases the United States is building in Iraq, renouncing any special rights to Iraqi off, and beginning a negotiation process with the different factions in Iraq.

"This business of 'We don't talk to bad people. We only talk to good people.' In a broader sense, we won't talk to the Iranians, we won't talk to Hezbollah or Hamas. In this case, we won't talk to insurgents. If we persist in this, we'll never work out a relatively peaceful disengagement."