Ex-CIA Analyst Faults U.S. Policy

Seminary Hosts Teach-In On Torture - By FRANCES GRANDY TAYLOR
Hartford Courant
Apr. 28, 2006

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's use of intelligence to justify the Iraq war, told clergy members Wednesday that the United States' use of torture on prisoners in its custody amounts to war crimes.

"Let's not mince words - the U.S. has launched a war of aggression, which is a violation of international law," McGovern said at an interfaith "teach-in" at Hartford Seminary. "Rendering, kidnapping, all the deceit that has gone on with this war - it's far from rotten apples at the bottom of the barrel; these rotten apples are at the very top."

Reclaiming the Prophetic Voice, an interfaith group of clergy opposed to the war, invited McGovern to the teach-in, called "Torture is a Religious Issue." It was intended to help clergy devise a strategy to bring greater public awareness of torture against war prisoners.

The reported torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to countries that permit it, not only damages America's image and endangers American troops, McGovern said, but affects soldiers "physically, emotionally and psychologically - torture also brutalizes the torturer."

His talk was often as spiritual as it was political. "If we are true disciples of Jesus, we don't avoid evil, we confront it," he said.

"Clergy have a duty to address the issue of torture from the pulpit," said the Rev. Kathleen McTigue, pastor of the Unitarian Society of New Haven in Hamden, where McGovern will speak tonight at 7.

Many people believe that they are being made safer by policies that include torture, McTigue said.

"It's very easy for us to act on our fears, or to act on our anger,"' she said. "The question we need to ask ourselves is what does it do to us to remain silent when we all know that people are being tortured in the name of our safety."

The clergy can have significant influence on people's awareness of the torture issue, said Rabbi Donna Berman, a member of the group's steering committee and executive director of the Charter Oak Cultural Center.

"People are basically good at heart. They know torture is wrong, but our government has played to our base fears," Berman said. "The purpose of this teach-in is like throwing a pebble in the water. It will create ripples. "

McGovern left the CIA in the early 1990s after 27 years with the agency. He founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity in 2003, a group of former intelligence officers dedicated to exposing what they call the mishandling of intelligence before the Iraq war.

McGovern is also co-director of the Servant Leadership School and works with a publishing ministry of Church of the Savior, both based in Washington.

During an interview, McGovern responded to questions about the recent criticism of retired military generals calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"They see not only Iraq in a quagmire, but they are deathly afraid that the president is going to start a war with Iran," he said. "They clearly see an urgency for them to speak out at this time."

McGovern also said that the firing of CIA employee Mary O. McCarthy for allegedly leaking classified information was "bizarre that the administration is so upset with people who are trying to prevent it from committing war crimes."

McGovern said people should begin raising the issue by writing and calling their legislators and talking to other people about the torture issue. "We all move in our circle of friends and neighbors. ... One must never try to do something like this alone. It requires a community, no matter how small."