Karen Kwiatkowski Interview

I have added a link to a video of Karen Kwiatkowski discussing her experiences at the Pentagon while working around some key neocon players during the build up to invade Iraq. She has been highly critical of the information gathering (or should I say production?) that took place at that time.

The great thing about the video interview is that it gives you a good chance to evaluate her demeanor. Does she seem like someone prone to exaggeration, or worse? Does she seem like someone with an agenda?

To me she comes accross as a very honest person who saw things take place that she knew were wrong. Someone who had no interest whatsoever in "the spotlight", but who was compelled to speak out when she found herself in the middle of something very disturbing.

Here is a quote from an interview with LA Weekly:

[LA Weekly:]There you were, a career military officer, a Pentagon analyst, a conservative who had given two decades to this work. What provoked you to become first a covert and later a public dissident?

[KK]Like most people, I’ve always thought there should be honesty in government. Working 20 years in the military, I’m sure I saw some things that were less than honest or accountable. But nothing to the degree that I saw when I joined Near East South Asia.

This was creatively produced propaganda spread not only through the Pentagon, but across a network of policymakers — the State Department, with John Bolton; the Vice President’s Office, the very close relationship the OSP had with that office. That is not normal, that is a bypassing of normal processes. Then there was the National Security Council, with certain people who had neoconservative views; Scooter Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff; a network of think tanks who advocated neoconservative views — the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy with Frank Gaffney, the columnist Charles Krauthammer — was very reliable. So there was just not a process inside the Pentagon that should have developed good honest policy, but it was instead pushing a particular agenda; this group worked in a coordinated manner, across media and parts of the government, with their neoconservative compadres.

If you have time, this video is a good way to get a feel for what was going on at the Pentagon during the buildup towards war with Iraq. It is not pretty.