Ray McGovern Interviewed by Lee Stranahan pt1 (04/08/2017)

Supplemental document for: "Theory that Roger Stone's back channel to Wikileaks was Randy Credico", link: https://wakelet.com/wake/2d352ae9-febe-44a1-a7bb-51674a2e4bf5

"Ray McGovern addresses the 2013 Ghouta Syrian gas attack accusations": Ray McGovern interviewed by Lee Stranahan. Upload date: April 8, 2017.

File link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_0FbwlAeiw

LEE STRANAHAN
So, we're talking to Ray McGovern. Ray, could you just introduce yourself to people who don't know you.

RAY MCGOVERN
Sure, I'm Ray McGovern, with Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, of which there is not a great deal in supply here in Washington, and I've been a- well, I've been working with Russia for fifty five years, since I majored in Russian, and was the head of the Soviet Foreign Policy branch in the CIA, and right now, I'm focused on the Middle East, for obvious reasons, and I worked at the CIA as an analyst, for almost thirty years.

STRANAHAN
Okay. So, two things: number one, I've been showing footage of you asking a question of General Flynn, about the Ghouta attack...this is the first, correct me if I'm wrong, but Ghouta attack was 2013, August 2013-

MCGOVERN
August 21.

STRANAHAN
And it was claimed that it was Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian regime gassing his own people. Now, when I heard you ask General Flynn about it, he didn't really answer. Would you agree with that assessment? He answered, he should have known, if there was a real attack...that we knew Assad was behind, he would just have said, yeah-

MCGOVERN
During his tenure in DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency], this was the most profound and important thing that happened. He knew full well what went down, around Ghouta. He knew it wasn't Bashar Al-Assad, even though Secretary of State John Kerry said it thirty five times, on the 30th of August, 2013, it was BasharAlAssadBasharAlAssadBasharAlAssad...to his credit, Flynn fought that. He was against the CIA, he was against the State Department, against just about everybody. Except: Martin Dempsey, his boss, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Dempsey, prevailed upon Obama, not to press the button. Obama says, call those French, make sure the French aircraft are down on the tarmac, tell the Israelis they don't have to get their defenses up so high anymore, I'm not going to attack. Woah! What was the price Obama paid for that? Well...Putin, actually, pulled Obama's chestnuts out of the fire on that one, by getting Assad to agree to have all his chemical weapons from his army's stocks, destroyed. How? On a U.S. ship, expressly outfitted for destroying chemical weapons. Now, the people that wanted war on Syria, the same people who prevailed just yesterday, they were incensed. Long story short, six months later, they got back at Putin. Coup. In Kiev. From a position of high trust, in early September 2013, where Putin actually wrote an op-ed in the New York Times saying, "I'm very happy with my new atmosphere of trust, not only professional, but personal, with the president of the United States, the only thing I object to is the notion that the U.S. is the sole indispensable country in the world...I wish they would get over that, but, you know, I believe all countries are equal, that god created us all equal, and that there are big countries, small countries, advanced atate of democracy and not. But everyone should be treated equal under god's purview." That was written by Putin himself, I'm told by a really good source. That was September 2013, [makes whooshing downward sound] now, it's the nadir of U.S.-Russian relations. And why? Because six months later...well, Putin was in Sochi, terribly worried about a possible terrorist event during the Olympics. They mounted this coup, in the Ukraine. Then, the Crimea was re-annexed with Russia proper, civil war began, and the U.S. and the western nations used this as a cudgel to do sanctions, and all manner of other things against Russia.

When MH17 came down, in July 17, 2014, even though Kerry said, "We have the trajectory information, we know when the missile was shot, we know where it was shot from, we know when it intersected with MH17, and it was that time that it fell to the ground." Kerry has not been able, not been willing to share that information, even with the Dutch investigators, who are supposed to be pursuing this. My conclusion from that is, there's all kinds of evidence...I know what kind of overhead collection we have in that area, especially during a period of war. There's all kinds of evidence, but it doesn't support what Kerry _lied_ about, three days after the shooting down.

So, what we have here is a situation where there's a very strong, very strong feeling of ideologically neo-conish, but also, let's face it, peace is really bad for business. Pope Francis, to his credit, here in Congress, he says "The major problem is the blood drenched arms traders." OH, WOW. Pope said that? What did the congressmen, senators do? They got up and went [makes applause gesture] then they checked in their pockets to see if the Rayethon check and Lockheed check were still, it's like giving hypocrisy a bad name. But that's at the bottom of all of this. It sounds so simplistic, but I've been looking at it real close now. They appropriate the money, the Rayethons the Lockheeds make all the money, they sell their weapons, get more money, put it in their pockets of the congresspeople, senators, they get re-elected, and the cycle continues. So, that's what we're seeing here.

With respect to Flynn, I think he made a whole bunch of enemies...listen, I have to say, in my view, Flynn is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, okay? So, that doesn't help. He's done some really stupid things. But he made a whole bunch of enemies when he prevented Obama, together with...he prevented Obama through his boss, Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from flailing out at Syria, with a shock and awe attack, with the same kind of Tomahawk missiles, from the same kinds of U.S. Destroyers that launched those missiles last night.

STRANAHAN
And that happened, you're saying, because they knew the Ghouta chemical attack was not Assad.

MCGOVERN
That's right. Well, we knew...Obama, it's really strange, Obama kept pressing the party line, okay? But: in an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, his unofficial biographer, at The Atlantic, last year at this time, [article title: "President Obama’s Interview With Jeffrey Goldberg on Syria and Foreign Policy - The Atlantic" link: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ ] he said, "You know what I'm proudest of, I'm proudest of resisting the advice of virtually all my national security advisors...they wanted me to attack Syria, I said no, I'm not going to do that. And I'm very proud of that. Now. I also oughta tell you, Jeffrey, that during that crucial time, when these decisions were being made, last week of August, 2013, James Clapper, National Intelligence Director, overseeing all these intelligence agencies, he drops in on me, unexpected. I said, 'What do you need Jim?' 'Well, Mr. President, I just want to tell you, you know, I've great respect for the Secretary of State, I know he says Bashar Al-Assad did those chemical attacks in Ghouta, but I just want to...how do I say this, let me say it this way, it's not a slam dunk. Okay? You got it, Mr. President? It's not a slam dunk.'" The allusion, of course, is to what George Tenet is reported to have said, reported by Condoleezza Rice, who was there, when Bush and Cheney said, "Is that all you got on weapons of mass destruction?" After being briefed on that. He [Tenet] said, "No no, it's a slam dunk." So: what was Clapper saying? What Kerry is saying is for political purposes, you should know the truth is that it's not a slam dunk, intimation, we know from the British, from others, that that sarin that was used, was homemade, like Lavrov, the foreign minister for Russia said...and, you know, despite that, despite Obama admitting last year, in 2016, that he's proud of that, and admitting that he was told it's not a slam dunk...three weeks later, before the U.N., Obama says, "Nobody in his right mind could possibly have any illusions about the fact that Bashar Assad did that chemical attack, and we need to hold him accountable for that." So, you know, people lie through their teeth, Obama lied through his teeth, it wasn't Bashar Assad, and...people don't follow this, partly because it's not in the media. But I follow it. In the end of 2015, RT [Russia Today], had a report [Title: "EXCLUSIVE: Sarin materials brought via Turkey & mixed in Syrian ISIS camps – Turkish MP to RT" link: https://www.rt.com/news/325825-sarin-gas-syria-turkey/ ], that a Turkish parliamentarian named Eren Erdem - K? - got into possession court documents from Anotalia in Southern Turkey. Now, what they said was: thirteen smugglers, or rebels, or whatever, were from Western Europe, or from Europe at least, were smuggling in the precursors for sarin into southern Syria, the place where the Ghouta attacks occured. And uh- So, he testified before the Turkish parliament to this effect. I mean, these were documents, right? What happened to those guys? Well, higher authorities said, don't try these guys, let them go, and so they were let go, where'd they go, they went back into Syria. So that's what happened. We know-

STRANAHAN
I researched it.

MCGOVERN
You know?

STRANAHAN
I researched it. Absolutely. You're correct.

MCGOVERN
And we said at the time, we sent the president a memorandum on the sixth of September, saying, look, our sources tell us, that there've been all kinds of meetings between Turkish and between U.S., and between Israeli...secret service people, the CIA and so forth, to plot this attack, and indeed, that's what happened. So, what I'm saying here is that Dempsey stood into that. Now, did he incur the favor of the neo-cons, or anybody in position? No! He stood against it. Now, I don't know anything really good, else - I don't know anything else really good about Flynn, and, as I say, I talked to him in Moscow, he's a nice enough guy, but: not the sharpest guy in the world. K? And the way he handled himself at that interview with Sophie Shevardnadze, I was embarrassed [link to video of this interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RIUE68cpGc Specific link to McGovern asking Flynn a question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFAQ9evpHog ]. He didn't answer her questions, he did try to say, I'm here- He said the right things, the things that were-

STRANAHAN
But to me, the fact that he didn't answer it directly was very telling, I thought.

MCGOVERN
Well yeah, I think, you may recall, if I recall correctly, he said, "What? What are you talking about?"

STRANAHAN
Yeah.

MCGOVERN
"I don't remember." I said, "Well, you know, the chemical attack outside Ghouta..." "Oh, yeah, I just don't..." [laughs] It was so disingenuous. He didn't want to say one way or the other, for political reasons. And I didn't want to press him- Well, I didn't press him. It was enough that he didn't say "Nonono! It was the Syrians for sure, it was Bashar Al-Assad."

STRANAHAN
Yeah, he didn't say that.

MCGOVERN
No.

STRANAHAN
Alright, thanks.