Ray McGovern| consortiumblog.com | July 24, 2009
Seven years ago this week, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair gathered his top national security advisers at 10 Downing St. to hear a report from U.K. intelligence chief Richard Dearlove, just back in London from face-to-face talks with then-CIA Director George Tenet in Washington.
Blair and President George W. Bush had been talking regularly by telephone for several months. But, as is well known, even the most secure phones can be tapped, and there are some things — like preparing criminal wars of aggression, I suppose — that are so outrageous one doesn’t dare take any chances.
Besides, Blair apparently had some misgivings about taking at face value the Texas-size braggadocio he was hearing at the other end of the phone about what was going to happen to Saddam Hussein and why. It is understandable that he would seek independent, authoritative confirmation that this was also what Bush was sharing with his top accomplices.
Who better to confirm or deny than Bush-vassal Tenet, who met six mornings a week with the American president to discuss the President’s Daily Brief?
Ray McGovern at the Downing Street Memo Hearing (6/16/05)
Former CIA specialist Ray McGovern gives a powerful speech on pre-war intelligence and what people in the U.S. should do to defend the Constitution.