Re: Bullying and Threats Can't Smokescreen the Truth - Colleen Rowley

Two days ago, President Bush continued his strategy of smokescreening
the truth by criticizing what he called "irresponsible debate" over the
war in Iraq. He would love to have us forget how we got into that
quagmire in the first place and now he pleads with us to stay the
course of his grave mistake.


Mr. Bush's comments apparently were targeted at Democrats like myself
who are campaigning for Congress. As an "honest critic," I'm happy to
respectfully respond.

Let me go back to May 2002 when I was an FBI agent and Minneapolis
Legal Counsel for the FBI. I wrote a 13-page memo, addressed to
Director Mueller and copied to two senators working on the Joint
Intelligence Committee Inquiry, exposing some of the issues that had
kept the FBI from preventing 9-11. I had discovered that after
something as bad as 9-11 happened, there is a tendency for people to
want to gloss over their mistakes and sweep them under the rug.
Unraveling the truth of what has occurred in such a situation is
painful, to say the least, and many would rather say, "Let's just go
forward from here." Many (especially in the FBI hierarchy) thought of
me as a traitor for even admitting that mistakes had been made, but
others in our country appreciated my honesty.

So when I testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2002, my
statement went to great lengths to identify the reasons why it's
necessary to insist on the utmost integrity, complete frankness and
honesty, even after a horrible event has already occurred. Perhaps the
most compelling of all the reasons I gave for the need for such brutal
honesty in fully and truthfully unraveling mistakes was so we can learn
from the mistakes and fix them so that we do better in the future. The
problem with not looking back, with the less painful "just go from
here" approach, is that it rarely, if ever, will lead to the most
appropriate solution or remedy that actually best addresses the current
state of affairs.

Talk about mistakes, I voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Why, you ask?
Because I had been working in government for years and believed Mr.
Bush when he called for clean, honest, open government; believed him
when he promised to avoid creating huge deficits and claimed he would
be cooperative in world affairs -- and then Mr. Bush turned right
around and reversed his position in almost every area. I learned from
my mistake so well that now I'm running for Congress to try to help
repair the damage Mr. Bush has done to this country and the world.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bush has yet to come clean and level with the
American people about his own mistakes, such as his decision to order
U.S. military troops to invade and occupy Iraq. Minnesota's Second
District Congressman John Kline was apparently privy to the Bush
Administration's inside information and "rolled out" his own campaign
for war on Iraq several months ahead of even Bush and Cheney. Mr.
Kline, like Bush and Cheney, has never admitted his mistakes either.
All three insist their initial reasons for invasion really don't matter
now, that we're in Iraq and we're stuck. They warn those who disagree
with Mr. Bush and who debate in search of the truth and a better way
forward -- people like myself -- that we are "aiding the enemy."

Wrong. We are aiding and assisting America so that we don't compound
the problem and so the same mistakes are not repeated in the future. I
think the people of Minnesota and of our country know this and want me
and other congressional candidates to fight for the right to debate and
speak the truth. I will continue to do so even if Mr. Bush and his
surrogate Mr. Kline call me names. I went through tough FBI training
and can take it. Having been part and parcel of the serious domino
chain of errors that has transpired up to and since 9-11, I see it as a
duty to continue to insist on the utmost integrity including the
unraveling of the serious errors made by the Bush Administration.

"Irresponsible"? The irresponsible Republicans have run the economy
into a deficit ditch, abandoned millions of our jobs to other
countries, wallowed in a culture of corruption financed by the likes of
Jack Abramoff, eavesdropped on American citizens without warrants and
led us into a quagmire of death in Iraq. The most responsible thing
Democrats like me can do is take back the House and Senate in 2006 by
speaking the truth all the way.



In January of 1981, Rowley was appointed a Special Agent with the FBI
and initially served in the Omaha, Nebraska and Jackson, Mississippi
Divisions. In 1984 she was assigned to the New York Office and for over
6 years worked on Italian organized crime and Sicilian heroin drug
investigations. During this time Rowley also served three separate
temporary duty assignments in the Paris, France Embassy and Montreal
Consulate.

In 1990 Rowley was transferred to Minneapolis where she assumed the
duties of Principal Legal Advisor (now known as "Chief Division
Counsel") which entailed oversight of the Freedom of Information,
Forfeiture, Victim-Witness and Community Outreach Programs as well as
providing regular legal and ethics training to FBI Agents of the
Division and some outside police training.

In May of 2002 Rowley brought some of the pre 9-11 lapses to light and
testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee about some of the endemic
problems facing the FBI and the intelligence community. Rowley was one
of three whistleblowers chosen as persons of the year by TIME magazine.

In April 2003, following an unsuccessful and highly criticized attempt
to warn the Director and other administration officials about the
dangers of launching the invasion of Iraq, Rowley stepped down from her
(GS-14) legal position to go back to being a (GS-13) FBI Special Agent.
She retired from the FBI at the end of 2004 and now speaks publicly to
various groups, ranging from school children to
business/professional/civic groups, on two different topics: ethical
decision-making and "balancing civil liberties with the need for
effective investigation."

In February 2005, a majority of Minnesota congresspersons and senators
nominated Rowley to serve on the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight
Board. This Board was mandated by recent federal intelligence reform
legislation implementing the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission.

Rowley has authored a chapter in a book published by the Milton
Eisenhower Foundation entitled, PATRIOTISM, DEMOCRACY AND COMMON SENSE:
RESTORING AMERICA'S PROMISE AT HOME AND ABROAD.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: sci.crypt.research scheduled for sporge flood
    ... No evidence was brought against Laden for nine eleven, ... "Bush signed W199I months before 911 ordering the FBI not to ... that Iraq had failed to comply with the newest U.N. ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: Arab terrorists
    ... So naturally Bush invaded Iraq. ... Did you sleep through our action in Afghanistan? ... No one should deny that mistakes, even huge mistakes were made -- by Bush, ...
    (rec.arts.movies.current-films)
  • Re: Top Ten Bush Lies
    ... he did hide it until a reporter from Maine uncovered it. ... No President has ever cut taxes during war time. ... Bush has become President. ... mistakes. ...
    (alt.guitar.amps)
  • Re: Obama on the Surge
    ... mistakes he had made and it would seem Sen. Obama is well along the ... would include those who criticized President Bush for saying he ... couldn't think of any mistakes but now come to the defense of "their" ... error in not supporting "The Surge". ...
    (misc.news.internet.discuss)
  • Re: States of Denial
    ... Please, Alvin, don't engage in fantasies, such as Bush admitting his mistakes. ... It would seem to be just another two years of Iraqi suffering and US casualties, ...
    (soc.retirement)