'Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity'

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'Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity'
Give Nicholas Kristof credit for being slightly ahead of his time. The New York Times columnist has been beating the drum for more than a month now about purportedly "politicized" intelligence on Iraq, and now the entire percussion section has joined in. And unlike fellow Times columnist and former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, who is a fount of pure partisan rage, Kristof at least seems to have a reasonable, high-minded argument. Here's how he put it in his May 30 column (the link is from the next day's Paris edition of the Times):

[Intelligence professionals] are coming forward because they are fiercely proud of the deepest ethic in the intelligence world--that intelligence should be nonpolitical--and are disgusted at efforts to turn them into propagandists. . . .

The atmosphere within the intelligence community is so poisonous, and the stakes are so high--for the credibility of America's word and the soundness of information on which American foreign policy is based--that an outside examination is essential.

In that column, Kristof introduced the world to a group that styles itself Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. This outfit made another appearance in yesterday's column:

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spies, issued an open letter to Bush Monday reflecting the view of many in the intelligence community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Cheney's resignation.

So who are these purported voices for "sanity" and against "politicization"? Blogger William Sjornstrom did some online sleuthing, and here's what he found:

VIPS does not seem to have a website, but its email is vips@counterpunch.org, and their open letter appears to have been published at CounterPunch (run by Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist), an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler. VIPS also published an open letter in opposition to the war at Common Dreams back in February. The spokesman for VIPS is Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA analyst. McGovern's email is also at CounterPunch. He is giving a briefing today [Tuesday] with Rep. Dennis Kucinich. McGovern has compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, even saying that it could lead to nuclear war. He has charged that if WMDs are found in Iraq, they may well have been planted. He believes Tenet's job is safe because if Tenet were fired, he would reveal that the White House ignored intelligence warnings pre-9/11. McGovern has urged CIA analysts to illegally release classified documents to show what he believes to be true, specifically citing Daniel Ellsberg.

Another member of the VIPS steering committee is William Christison, who among other things believes that the Bush administration is attempting to colonize the Middle East, jointly with Israel. He believes that the war on terror is being used to turn the US into a military dictatorship. He is also a backer of the left-wing UrgentCall, along with people such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Julian Bond, and Jonathan Schell.

None of this proves that VIPS is evil, or even wrong. It does say that Kristof is trying to pass off a fairly left-wing group as a group of non-partisan "professionals."

The question is: Was Kristof merely duped, or is this part of a broader pattern of dishonesty and delusion at the New York Times?