Daniel Ellsberg Says Sibel Edmonds Case 'Far More Explosive Than Pentagon Papers'

'Gagged' FBI Whistleblower, Risking Jail, Says American Media Has Refused Her Offer to Disclose Classified Information, Including Criminal Allegations, Information Concerning 'Security of Americans'

Charges Several Mainstream Publications Have Been Informed of 'Full Story' by Other FBI Leakers Nearly a Year Ago, Have Remained Mum...

-- Brad Friedman, The BRAD BLOG

"I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers," Daniel Ellsberg told us in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds.

"From what I understand, from what she has to tell, it has a major difference from the Pentagon Papers in that it deals directly with criminal activity and may involve impeachable offenses," Ellsberg explained. "And I don't necessarily mean the President or the Vice-President, though I wouldn't be surprised if the information reached up that high. But other members of the Executive Branch may be impeached as well. And she says similar about Congress."

The BRAD BLOG reports:

The BRAD BLOG spoke recently with the legendary 1970's-era whistleblower in the wake of our recent exclusive, detailing Edmonds' announcement that she was prepared to risk prosecution to expose the entirety of the still-classified information that the Bush Administration has "gagged" her from revealing for the past five years under claims of the arcane "State Secrets Privilege".

Ellsberg, the former defense analyst and one-time State Department official, knows well the plight of whistleblowers. He himself was prepared to spend his life in prison for the exposure of some 7,000 pages of classified Department of Defense documents, concerning Executive Branch manipulation of facts and outright lies leading the country into an extended war in Vietnam.

Ellsberg seemed hardly surprised that today's American mainstream broadcast media has so far failed to take Edmonds up on her offer, despite the blockbuster nature of her allegations.

As Edmonds has also alluded, Ellsberg pointed to the New York Times, who "sat on the NSA spying story for over a year" when they "could have put it out before the 2004 election, which might have changed the outcome."

"There will be phone calls going out to the media saying 'don't even think of touching it, you will be prosecuted for violating national security,'" he told us.

"I have been receiving calls from the mainstream media all day," Edmonds recounted the day after we ran the story announcing that she was prepared to violate her gag-order to disclose all of the national security-related criminal allegations she has been kept from disclosing for the past five years.

"The media called from Japan and France and Belgium and Germany and Canada and from all over the world," she told The BRAD BLOG.

"But not from here?," we asked incredulously.

"I'm getting contact from all over the world, but not from here. Isn't that disgusting?," she shot back.

An Iranian-born American citizen, the linguistics expert Edmonds has been described by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as "the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America" since filing her original complaints at the FBI, where she had been hired in late 2001 to translate a backlog of pre-9/11 wiretaps.

She has previously indicated a litany of criminal corruption, malfeasance, and cover-ups concerning the penetration of the FBI and Departments of State and Defense by foreign agents in senior positions; influence-peddling and bribery by shadowy Turkish interests throughout the U.S. government over several administrations; undisclosed information related to 9/11; including alleged illegal activities of former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, and, most recently, two other "well-known" members of Congress who she will now name to the mainstream media.

Edmonds has taken her whistleblower case all the way to the Supreme Court. She, and her allegations, have been confirmed as both serious and extremely credible by the FBI Inspector General, several sitting Senators, both Republican and Democratic, several senior FBI agents, the 9/11 Commission, and dozens of national security and whistleblower advocacy groups. She was even offered the possibility of public hearings on these matters by the Chairman of the U.S. House Government Accountability and Oversight Committee, after briefing his staff in a special high-security area of the U.S. Capitol reserved for the exchange of classified information.

Her extraordinary story was first aired by CBS' 60 Minutes in 2002 (and re-run twice thereafter), and via a detailed 2005 exposé in Vanity Fair.

All while she was unable to violate the yoke of the unprecedented use of the arcane "States Secrets Privilege", invoked by the DoJ in such a draconian fashion that she is still "gagged" from disclosing even innocuous personal details such as her date of birth.

After five years of being vetted and investigated, with a great deal of her allegations having leaked out via others sources and confirmed by myriad sources, her publicly undisclosed claims would appear to be as credible --- and as critically serious to national security --- as any whistleblower in the history of the nation.

After bringing her charges to the FBI, Congress and the nation's highest court --- all of whom failed to take action or legitimately pursue her claims --- she now feels "obligated" to share the information with the American public. But the American Mainstream Media are apparently unwilling to air it.

Three weeks ago, she told The BRAD BLOG she had "exhausted every channel" and was prepared to "let them see how far they're going to get [by bringing] criminal charges against someone who divulges criminal activity." She was ready to disclose all.

Her "promise to the American public" at the time: "If anyone of the major networks --- ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX --- promise to air the entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything that I know."

"I don't think any of the mainstream media are going to have the guts to do it," she told us. We didn't believe that could be the case. Surely, we thought, loads of folks in the mainstream broadcast media would jump at the chance for such an explosive exclusive. 60 Minutes, after all, had re-run their initial story on her, including interviews with her, Senators Grassley and Leahy, and several FBI agents, not once, but twice!

It turns out, however, that she was correct. So far.

"How Do We Deal With Sibel?"

"I am confident that there is conversation inside the Government as to 'How do we deal with Sibel?'" contends Ellsberg. "The first line of defense is to ensure that she doesn't get into the media. I think any outlet that thought of using her materials would go to to the government and they would be told 'don't touch this, it's communications intelligence.'"

Edmonds, who founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), contends that she's very sensitive to matters of national security and would never reveal information that could put the country at risk.

"I am not about to expose any methods of intelligence gathering. I am not going to expose any ongoing investigations, or even any investigations that may be ongoing," she told us, explaining that all relevant investigations about which she has information were long ago shut down by the government.

"I am not going to name any informant's name. I am not going to jeopardize any ongoing intelligence. Anything I'm going to be talking about, I know they are investigations that have been shut down by January and February of 2002."

"I am Obligated"

When it comes to the sort of Executive Branch classification of information that's been used to stop Edmonds from revealing alleged criminal culpability, she contends it is the government, not she, who is violating the law.

Legally and constitutionally, she asserts, such classification "may not be used to cover up illegal criminal activities with consequences to public health, security, safety and welfare. It cannot be used to cover up illegal activities."

"The reason I went to Congress, the reason I went to the IG, all of this, is that I was obligated to do so. Because they are covering up illegal activities that effect the public health, security and welfare."

"I am obligated," she repeated again.

Ellsberg agrees. "What is involved in protecting Executive Branch crimes, the duty is to protect the law and to uphold and defend the Constitution. Though most don't understand that and they see loyalty to their boss and their party and their secrecy agreement as more important."

"They'll never get in trouble for that," he emphasized. "But they'll get in a lot of trouble if they are truthful to their oath to defend the Constitution."

Whether Edmonds will ever get that opportunity remains unclear.

Why Not YouTube It?

"When you have a publication like Vanity Fair, running a piece and naming someone like Dennis Hastert [as being allegedly involved in bribery by shadowy Turkish interests involved in narcotics trafficking] and nothing happens with it, you think they are going to pay attention to YouTube?" Edmonds explained when we asked why she didn't release the information herself as a video on the Internet.

Readers around the web have asked the same question in the wake of our previous story, which climbed to the top ranks of most linked and recommended at a number of Internet sites such as Digg.com, Reddit.com, DailyKos and others.

"Listen, I'm willing to have these people come after me with a prosecution --- they [the media] should be willing to do their part."

"This is the biggest risk that a citizen has ever taken...I guess, after Ellsberg...And I know why he did that with the New York Times," she explained referring to his giving thousands of pages of documents to the paper, who, at the time, went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight for their right to publish them, as they eventually did.

"What about the BBC? Would you do that?," we asked.

"Why am I going on BBC? This is about this country! This is about this country, and more of America needs to know the true face of the mainstream media," she exclaimed.

"The only way they got away with it was because of the mainstream media. They are the biggest culprit for the state of our country. Whether it's Iraq, or torture or the NSA wiretapping --- which the New York Times sat on for over a year! --- these people are the real culprit."

"Nibbles"

There were some "nibbles," as she called them. A producer from CBS Evening News had contacted The BRAD BLOG within hours of publishing our previous story, asking for Edmonds' contact information to forward to 60 Minutes producers. Nothing has come of it so far.

ABC News also inquired. Despite allowing Presidents and other officials to make previously undisclosed claims on live programs such as This Week and others, they declined to extend the same opportunity to Edmonds. That, despite dozens of high-ranking officials, elected and otherwise, who have heard her claims over the years and repeatedly declared them to be exceedingly credible and meriting serious investigation.

What about Keith Olbermann? Surely he'd pick up this story! A producer at MSNBC's Countdown --- perhaps the outlet most often suggested to us as likely willing to interview her --- expressed interest during multiple inquiries we'd made to them. Each time, the promise was made to call us back with on the record information on whether they would do the interview, and if not, why not. They never called us back.

Edmonds' phone was "ringing off the hook" for requests for interviews from independent radio shows. Ours was too, and our email inbox yielded dozens of similar requests.

But Edmonds has been clear: "I'm gonna do one major interview" to tell all of the 'states secret' information. "Afterwards, I'll do the others. But this is gonna be one round, give it all and say 'here it is.'"

The ground rules seem fair enough. She is risking being rushed off to prison after all.

"Setting Records for Shamelessness"

The mainstream media is "shameless", Ellsberg says, so is Congress, so is Bush.

"He's setting records for shamelessness. He should probably be in the Guinness Book of Records. He doesn't care what he says. And the media is shameless as well, as they'll run anything he says. And Congress is pretty shameless as well. You can't really shame these people."

Without mainstream corporate media attention, Ellsberg contends, Edmonds' story will stay off the radar, and her damaging contentions will do no harm to the powers that be.

"She's not going to shame the media, unless the public are aware that there is a conflict going on. And only the blog-reading public is aware of that. It's a fairly large audience, but it's a small segment of the populace at large."

Unless her claims reach the mainstream, he says, "they don't suffer any risk of being shamed. As long as they hold a united front on this, they don't run the risk of being shamed."

They Already Know

Edmonds revealed an additional tasty morsel while wrapping up one of our recent conversations. One that might help explain the American media's reluctance to jump at the chance for a scoop: apparently many of them already know the story.

"I will name the name of major publications who know the story, and have been sitting on it --- almost a year and a half."

"How do you know they have the story?," we asked.

"I know they have it because people from the FBI have come in and given it to them. They've given them the documents and specific case-numbers on my case."

"These are agents that have said to me, 'if you can get Congress to subpoena me I'll come in and tell it under oath.'"

Yet, despite promises she says she had received from staffers in Rep. Henry Waxman's (D-CA) office to hold hearings once he became chairman of the House Oversight Committee, they no longer respond to her. "The only reason they couldn't hold hearings [previously]," they'd told her, "was because the Republicans were blocking it."

They're not blocking it anymore. Ever since the Democrats have taken control of the House. Nonetheless, there are still no plans for hearings. Even with more than 30,000 people having signed her petition, calling on Waxman to do so.

A spokesperson from his office finally replied to our repeated requests for comment on why they had not yet held hearings on Edmonds' case.

We were told only that there are no hearings currently scheduled on her case. Repeated attempts to gather a more specific explanation or confirmation that the office had previously promised hearings yielded the same answer, and nothing more. No hearing is presently scheduled on the matter.

"It's disgusting," Edmonds said about the broken promises. "They won't do it anymore. It's disgusting."

"This is criminal activity. That's why I went to Congress, to the Courts, to the [FBI] IG. I am obligated to do so. And that's what I've been doing since 2002."

"By not doing so, someone should charge me for not coming forward to say something about this," she continued.

"If they come after me...when they come after me --- to indict me, to bring charges --- it's going to be up to the American public to see it's not about some bogeyman in some Afghanistan cave. It's about an American citizen coming forward to expose information that concerns the security of Americans."

"An American citizen is coming forward to say that, no, they are depriving you of your security."

Ellsberg says there's a reason that the Government, and both political parties, would rather not deal with something as explosive as Sibel's charges. Much like his own case, when the Republican Nixon administration fought against publication of the Pentagon Papers even though they were bound to embarrass the Democratic Johnson administration far more than Nixon's.

"It involves our allies in various places in the Middle East. It involves our allies in Turkey and in Afghanistan and involves people in our Congress and our State Department," he says.

Yes, Israel and the extremely powerful AIPAC lobby which supports both parties, is said to be involved as well.

"There's no way that the President and Vice-President can escape culpability in this case," Ellsberg charges. "If they claim they don't know about it, then they are culpable in not knowing about it, and that's impeachable right there."

Just as Ellsberg had hoped in 1971, and later encouraged others over the years, Edmonds remains hopeful that somehow, in telling her story --- if she will be allowed tell her story --- it will help others to step forward and do the same.

"Maybe it'll cause other whistleblowers at NSA, FBI...to see that they should come forward and tell what they know," she said in a telephone interview yesterday. "We haven't been seeing them come forward. Maybe it takes just one person to see what's going to happen."

"For now, as you can see," she added, "the fear tactics have worked."

Is Daniel Ellsberg Right Again?

In the San Francisco Chronicle, Bob Cooper writes:

The Pentagon insider-turned-Bay Area activist says the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq are tragic and inescapable. Why, he asks, have our leaders failed to learn from the mistakes of 40 years ago?.

Daniel Ellsberg, 72, is hoarse after speaking for two hours last December about the similarities between the Vietnam and Iraq wars to an overflow Berkeley bookstore crowd. He knows he's drained the air out of the room with his somber monologue, so he concludes the evening by tugging scarves out of his pocket to perform some magic. A lifetime ago, his magic tricks brought smiles to the faces of Vietnamese orphans in bombed-out villages he passed through as a State Department observer from 1965 to 1967. His audiences these days are different, but they, too, appreciate the diversion.

When he wonders aloud which trick to perform, someone wisecracks, "Make Bush disappear." Laughter ripples through the store and Ellsberg grins. He wishes it were that easy. His release of the Pentagon Papers in 1971 may have shortened the Nixon presidency and the Vietnam War, but making Bush and the Iraq War disappear would be a challenge even for Houdini. Ellsberg no longer has access to the sort of secret documents that made him a '60s icon and the pre-eminent government whistle-blower in U.S. history. Now the longtime Bay Area political activist can only educate the public, one bookstore talk at a time, on why he thinks the war in Iraq is Vietnam revisited.

Ellsberg's Berkeley appearance was his 55th nationwide since publication of his American Book Award-winning "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers." The book tour is entering its 18th month as audience interest in Ellsberg's Vietnam-Iraq comparisons remains high, fueled by gloomy news from the occupation. For the middle-aged crowd, especially those who are Vietnam veterans, it's a reopening of old wounds, while for college students it's a history lesson tying their parents' war to their own. Says Ellsberg, "Sometimes I feel I'm waking up to the world I left 40 years ago."

In that world, public support for the Vietnam War was substantial until Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to the Senate and 19 newspapers. The 47 volumes of mostly classified documents revealed a pattern of government errors and lies about the war considered to be so inflammatory that the Supreme Court temporarily ordered the New York Times to stop publishing excerpts. Henry Kissinger, who had previously sought out Ellsberg for his expertise on Vietnam, called him "the most dangerous man in America."

Ellsberg was charged with 12 felony counts under the Espionage Act, carrying a maximum sentence of 115 years. The charges against Ellsberg and Anthony Russo (who helped him photocopy the papers) were dismissed in the fifth month of the trial, however, on grounds of governmental misconduct due to illegal wiretapping and evidence tampering. He was free to resume criticizing the government, which he's done assiduously and passionately ever since.

Duped by Our Leaders?

"We were lied into both wars in every aspect - the reasons for going in, the prospects, the length, the scale and the probable costs in lives and dollars," he tells the crowd as rain puddles the sidewalk on Shattuck Avenue. "With Iraq, the big lie is that it represented the No. 1 security threat to the U.S. That's not just questionable, it's absurd. We live in a dangerous world with al Qaeda terrorism, more than 20,000 poorly guarded Russian nuclear weapons and the unstable, nuclear-armed state of Pakistan, where Osama and other al Qaeda leaders are probably hiding. Saddam was a tyrant, but he was never linked to 9/11, and the talk of weapons of mass destruction was at least exaggerated. He wasn't even a threat to his neighbors."

Ellsberg speaks in a gravelly baritone. A swirl of white hair frames a slender, kindly face. He is formal and professorial in dress and speech, remnants of his straight-arrow days as a Harvard man (doctorate in economics), U.S. Marine commander, Rand Corporation think-tank analyst and Pentagon insider. He has studied war for most of his life, but came to a visceral understanding of it while "walking point" (leading foot patrols to draw fire) with troops in Vietnam. That was when he realized the Vietnam War was unwinnable, largely because of what he calls "revolutionary judo" - a guerrilla tactic used against U.S. troops by the Viet Cong and now by Iraqis.

"In judo, you can turn the strength of a stronger opponent against himself, " he explains. "Revolutionary judo in Vietnam often took the form of a single Viet Cong firing a shot at a U.S. chopper from a village, which prompted us to bomb the village. We thought, 'That will teach them a lesson.' But the villagers who saw relatives killed and wounded joined the other side. So our superior firepower was used against us to create support for the enemy. It's how the Viet Cong, with their handmade weapons, prevailed against massive U.S. bombing, and it's also why the Iraqi resistance is not going away."
The Vietnam War killed 58,235 Americans and an estimated 1.5 million Vietnamese, and Ellsberg fears Iraq could be just as catastrophic. Besides "revolutionary judo," he says that U.S. war planners have forgotten other lessons of Vietnam, like the need for an exit strategy and the futility of "pacification." Pacification means that locals can gradually take over for occupying troops, but Ellsberg says hired locals are always seen by fellow citizens as traitorous collaborators. Pacification attempts have consistently failed - in Afghanistan by the Russians; in Vietnam by the French and the Americans; and so far by British and American forces in Iraq.

"We perceive ourselves as liberators opposing the forces of evil," he says, "but the resistance fighters are not seen as evil by most Iraqis, nor were they in Vietnam. Iraqis think we want to occupy the country indefinitely with U.S. troops and a pro-American government, and as long as that perception exists, pacification is impossible."

At the heart of his argument is this: "The fundamental similarity shared by the Vietnam and Iraq wars is that a U.S. occupying force is facing primarily nationalist resistance fighters - locals who feel they are defending their country. These fighters can hide without being found because they have the general support of the population. This happened in our own country when the British were occupiers, but now we're the redcoats."

All the President's Men

How did we get into this mess? Ellsberg blames the president's men - notably Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle - for channeling the outrage over Sept. 11 into an attack on a Muslim country.

Deception was the means, he says, and world oil dominance the end. "It's a lie that this war is part of the war on terror, because every day we occupy Iraq is a good recruiting day for Osama. The occupation of an Arab country increases al Qaeda's support and reduces the cooperation from Muslim countries to stop terrorism, so it actually increases the likelihood of another 9/11."

In most of the world, he adds, the Iraq invasion was seen as an act of naked aggression, comparable to Saddam's invasion of Kuwait or even Hitler's blitzkriegs of Poland and France. "Like Vietnam, this war was started as a result of distortions fed to Congress and the public by the executive branch," Ellsberg says. He witnessed the distortion game firsthand at the dawn of the Vietnam War. While working for Assistant Secretary of Defense John McNaughton in 1964, he received an urgent cable from the captain of a naval destroyer in the Tonkin Gulf describing a torpedo attack. Hours later, however, another cable from Capt. John Herrick stated that "overeager
sonarmen" had probably misinterpreted the ship's own propeller beat for torpedo hits.
"Herrick's new cable didn't slow for a moment the preparations in Washington and the Pacific for a retaliatory air strike," Ellsberg wrote in "Secrets." U.S. bombing commenced the next day, after President Johnson told the nation he had "unequivocal" evidence of an attack. Long after the war ended, Herrick and then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara acknowledged the ship was almost certainly never hit.

Congress also deserves some blame for both wars, says Ellsberg. The 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed overwhelmingly three days after the purported attack, handing war-making powers to Johnson. The 2002 Congress conceded war powers to Bush by passing the Iraq Military Authorization bill. "In both instances, it was unconstitutional and irresponsible for Congress to write an undated blank check to the president to start a war. Even worse, they did it on the basis of brief testimony in the case of Vietnam and no hearings at all in the case of Iraq. Although both resolutions were based on false information from the White House, that doesn't excuse Congress for abdicating its constitutional role."

Iraq War opponents do seem to have a head start on their Vietnam-era counterparts. First, he notes: "Government lying about Vietnam didn't become widely known for four years, while in Iraq the lack of weapons of mass destruction became apparent within weeks." Second, it took five years for anti- Vietnam War street protests to become as large as those that preceded the Iraq invasion. Third, the anti-war candidacy of Howard Dean that made him the early Democratic frontrunner is reminiscent of the Gene McCarthy and George McGovern presidential runs in 1968 and 1972. Richard Nixon won those two elections, however, and the troops didn't come home until Congress finally cut off funds in 1973.

"A major factor that kept us in Vietnam and that's keeping us in Iraq," says Ellsberg, "is the unwillingness by those in power to admit they made a mistake. This would be admitting that lives were wasted and it would look like they're accepting defeat. That thinking was enough to keep Vietnam going year after year. In Iraq, we would be giving up if we withdraw troops . . . but we should give up. It's not for President Bush or any other American to determine the internal policies of Iraq, and prolonging the occupation does nothing to solve Iraq's problems."

Patriot or Traitor?

Ellsberg's release of the Pentagon Papers was like kicking over a beehive. His trial made headlines for months, highlighted by the revelation that the so- called "plumbers" (assigned to plug government leaks) broke into his psychiatrist's office in an attempt to discredit him. They bungled that assignment as badly as their more famous caper, the Watergate burglary, and Ellsberg had the last laugh when they ended up behind bars instead of him. The trial's disclosures also figured in Nixon's resignation, and as an indirect result, hastened the end of the war.

Ellsberg now encourages those with access to similar documents concerning Iraq to turn them over to Congress and the press. "They can omit the portions that in any way involve national security," he says. "I have no doubt there are numerous people who have access to such documents," he says. "[Leaking them] may cost them their careers or even jail time, but it could save many lives."

His role as an unapologetic whistle-blower has caused some to call him a traitor and others a patriot, but he rejects both labels. Nor is he a strict pacifist, although he opposes military aggression. "As a boy during World War II, I believed we were on the right side because we were fighting aggression and I felt the same way about Korea when I joined the Marines. But now I am in the horrifying position of seeing my country being the aggressor."

He has been a political activist since Vietnam. He still feels guilt for not exposing government duplicity in 1964, when he first knew of it, instead of waiting several years. This guilt and haunting memories of Vietnam bloodshed drives his current anti-war work, which takes the form of writing, lecturing and nonviolent protest. He has been arrested for civil disobedience 70 times in protests against nuclear weapons, Central American interventions, the Gulf War and the Iraq War, including once last winter with his 26-year-old son, Michael, at an Iraq protest in front of U.N. Headquarters.

"I felt that Bush was leading America off a cliff with this war," says Michael of his first arrest. "The message my father is trying to get out is important, so I do what I can to help. I'm proud of what he's done in his life. " Michael edits his father's books and manages his Web site (Ellsberg.net). His father is devoting this year to finishing his most ambitious book yet, on nuclear war planning, an area of expertise going back to his Pentagon days. "I will address current dangers in light of the past, which was more dangerous than even people in the anti-nuclear movement realized," he says.

It will be grim, but not lonely, work. He shares a home with a sweeping view of the bay in Kensington, near Berkeley, with his wife of 33 years, Patricia. She insisted that their first date in 1965 was an anti-war demonstration at the Washington Monument, where he worried the whole time that his face would be spotted on the evening news by Pentagon colleagues. The ultimate odd couple, a war planner and an anti-war public radio host, argued through a five-year courtship until his opinions finally yielded to hers. The year they married in 1970, he spoke against the Vietnam War at a college teach- in, a complete turnaround from when he was sent to teach-ins by the Pentagon to defend war policy.

Puzzling Support

Three weeks after his recent bookstore appearance, he is at home, drinking tea from a heavy mug in the living room. Ceiling-high bookcases line the walls. Patricia has left for a hike with friends, while Michael, a Brown University graduate who has returned to the family home for the year, gives a salsa dancing lesson in the next room. On the table beside Ellsberg's mug is a copy of the New York Times, which reports three more U.S. deaths in Iraq.

"I suspect that troop morale is dropping quickly," he says, noticing the headline. "The military didn't want this war, it's the civilians in the White House, the Pentagon and the oil companies. Like the troops in Vietnam, these troops will begin to hate the occupation duty because they aren't safe anywhere and see no purpose in being there. I am guessing that we will soon see widespread drug abuse, with cheap heroin flooding into Iraq from Afghanistan, so we'll have drug-addicted soldiers coming home like we did during Vietnam. What's amazing to me about this war is the amount of public support that still remains."

This support puzzles him, he says, largely because government misbehavior regarding Iraq has been well established, and not only by journalists and liberals. Among the examples he raises:

-- CIA director George Tenet indicated before the war that there was no Saddam-al Qaeda link, which President Bush and Colin Powell have since admitted.

-- Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson revealed the alleged Niger-Iraq enriched uranium sale to be a hoax.

-- The CIA's former chief weapons inspector, David Kay, resigned last month and said there is almost no evidence in Iraq of WMD, which contradicts White House pre-invasion claims of WMD stockpiles.

-- British government translator Katherine Gun is on trial for releasing a classified document showing U.S. and British complicity in bugging the phones of U.N. Security Council members in an attempt to influence their votes on Iraq.

-- A U.S. Army War College report published last month called the Iraq War "unnecessary" and a "war-of-choice distraction" from the war on terrorism.

Meanwhile, the war drags on. March 20 is the one-year anniversary of the invasion, and major protests are planned in San Francisco and worldwide. The anniversary would have passed unnoticed if the war had ended within weeks or months, as expected. Instead, Coalition Forces commander Ricardo Sanchez now says U.S. troops may be in Iraq for two or more additional years.

"We stayed in Vietnam for nine years," notes Ellsberg, "even though it was clear to many people in the first year that it was unwinnable. This is also the case in Iraq, and as we're seeing, the capture of Saddam made no difference because he wasn't coordinating the resistance fighters. But we'll probably be there as long as Americans are willing to accept the casualties."

He sees a dark road ahead. "Unless our leaders learn from Vietnam, this will likely be a long, bloody, escalating stalemate, with casualties on both sides going steadily higher until we leave. Historians will regard this war as a disastrous error."

What Next?

Ellsberg urges Americans to support politicians who favor immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq; oppose Bush and members of Congress who don't; demand Congressional hearings to investigate improprieties during the White House push for war; and participate in all forms of protest against the war. He believes the huge Vietnam War protests saved hundreds of thousands of lives. "The war would have gone on even longer and nuclear weapons would have probably been used against China. Likewise, opposition to the Iraq invasion probably delayed it and slowed plans for other wars in the Middle East."

Protest while you can, he adds, because it may not be as easy in the future. "I will be happily surprised if there isn't a major terrorist attack in the U. S. in the next four years, and if Bush is in office, I think this country will shift to something very close to fascism. Ashcroft and Cheney will use an attack as an excuse to implement police controls far beyond any we've seen. That's why we need to demand a return to the Constitution and Bill of Rights now, before it's too late. Guantanamo is a concentration camp by every historic standard, but in the future there may be scores of them, and not only for Middle Easterners. Someone like myself, for simply exercising free speech like I am now, may be put in these camps without charges."

If all this sounds alarmist, it's not because Ellsberg is some wild-eyed anarchist. His analysis of foreign policy is more rational than radical, and mirrors the thinking of many respected political scientists. But he fears what kind of world he will leave to his three children and five grandchildren.

"Ours is a dangerous time with two relatively new threats, both of them exacerbated by the Iraq invasion and this administration's policies. One is the threat of future terrorism by Osama and al Qaeda. The other is the threat to our freedoms and our constitutional republic. These," he says, worry creasing his face, "are dangers that were never faced before in my lifetime."