Judging Freedom - U.S. Intel Mixed Messaging on Ukraine w/ Larry Johnson fmr CIA

Episode Date: September 5, 2023

U.S. Intel Mixed Messaging on Ukraine w/ Larry Johnson fmr CIASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, September 5th, 2023. Larry Johnson joins us now. Wow, September already. Where does the summer go? Is there any chance whatsoever that Ukraine can experience a major victory on the battlefield and prevail militarily in the war against Russia? The only way that can happen is if Russia rolls over on its back and surrenders. Otherwise the answer is no. They do not have the manpower.

They don't have the equipment. Yes, they have the backing of US and NATO intelligence. They have ample amounts of intelligence surveillance reconnaissance information, but that doesn't translate into battlefield capability. It just creates opportunities that can be exploited if you have the forces, and they don't have the forces. When the intelligence community assesses battlefield capability, do they fail to assess it adequately or is it still getting translated and twisted and transmogrified so that by the time it reaches the White House, it's giving the White House an incorrect picture so as to sustain its preconceived notions about the desirability of sending aid to Ukraine? Well, I'd asked a friend about this who's still involved,

sees the briefs and is listening to what's being said. And because I asked him, I said, has Defense Intelligence Agency finally come around? Are they telling the truth? Now, Defense Intelligence Agency is the military, is it not? Correct. The DIA answers primarily to the Pentagon. Okay. This was once headed, I think, by General Mike Flynn, was it not?

Correct. Mike Flynn was the head of it. Just to make sure we're talking about this, you have written that of the 17 intelligence agencies, three are preeminent. CIA, we know what that is. You used to work for them. NSA, that's the 60,000 domestic spies. And now this DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency. Okay. Your friend is about to tell you, or you're about to tell us

what your friend told you, DIA knows and is telling the Pentagon. So he was saying that, yeah, they're now doing a pretty good job of accurately describing the facts on the ground that Ukraine is not winning. It's not making much progress. And Russia is holding firm. But the problem comes from the leadership, particularly at the director of national intelligence level. So if you recall, right after 9-11, Congress decided why we had an intelligence failure was we didn't have enough bureaucracy in Washington. So they created another layer of bureaucracy. So the director of national intelligence is Averill Harriman, or Averill Haynes, excuse me.

And Averill, she's got her own point of view. And her point of view is that Russia is weak and failing. Russia is brittle. Russian military is incompetent. And that all the United States needs to do is hang in there, keep applying pressure, and Russia will collapse and Ukraine will prevail. JIM GILMORE Now, she can only rely for those conclusions on what agents from the various agencies tell her. That would be CIA and DIA. There are some other smaller agencies, but where else is she going to get that from? Well, you're correct. In theory, that's how it's supposed to work, that the intelligence

officers at the CIA and at the Defense Intelligence Agency and the people who are doing all the signal intercepts up at NSA, that they would provide objective information that anyone could look at and come to a conclusion. But that's not what is happening here. She is going to her own assumption and belief. She's allowing that to override what the actual intelligence says. And this actually supports what Cy Hersh has been reporting, that there have been intelligence reports delivered to Biden and his intelligence team or his national security team. And they're just ignoring it. They're not listening. the boss of the 17 federal intelligence agencies or spying agencies, whatever you want to call them? Or is she just nominally the bureaucratic head?

Yeah, really nominally the bureaucratic head because she does not have the power to fire any of the other heads. And, you know, the reason I singled out CIA, DIA, and NSA is the big three, because they're the ones that actually produce usable intelligence, information that's not derivative from something else. State Department, INR, the Intelligence and Research Bureau, they don't generate their own intelligence. You make the case that the FBI does that somewhat, but again, FBI by virtue of being law enforcement primarily creates material that's 6C material that can't be used in intelligence. You've got the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Geospatial Organizations used to deal with overhead photography.

But the big three really are the NSA, CIA, and DIA. And Harriman, the DNI, can't go in and fire them or coerce them. They control their own information. She does not have control over their intelligence. So you're a former analyst who, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, Larry, received raw data, analyzed it, passed it on to your superiors. Phil Giraldi was one of the people who actually developed the raw data. Ray McGovern was one of the people who actually took the information that you analyzed and he presented it to the White House. Somewhere after you, this stuff gets twisted so as to meet the political paradigm

of those who are making the judgment calls. Is that right? Well, no, no. Ray and I did the same thing. We were analysts. You get the raw intelligence reports that are the human source reports from the Directorate of Operations. You get NSA intercepts, intercepted conversations, emails from foreign leaders. And then you'd get reports from defense attachés in the field that's put out by DIA. And so then you'd have State Department original cables. Those were sort of the major sources and some press reports. You cull through that. You try to come up with what's happening and provide an evidence base saying, according to this source, according to that source, here's the storyline. Ray then became later, he was the briefer where he would

take that information to Finnish intelligence downtown to brief the president and others. So what's happening is you may have the actual finished intel telling one story, or that Avril Haines, the director of the National Intelligence, are actually accurately reflecting and repeating what is in the finished intelligence. Does the intelligence community speak with one voice? The answer to that must be no. They're supposed to. That's what the DNI is there for. Or there are times, you know, when you produce what's called a national intelligence estimate, that ideally you want everybody in the intelligence community to agree.

If they don't agree, there is a process where the dissenting intelligence or intelligence organizations, more than one, can dissent. They can say, no, in contrast to what the CIA believes we believe the following and in fact if I recall correctly the white paper that was produced to justify invading Iraq in 2003 there was that was based on a national intelligence estimate that actually had some dissents in it so the the intelligence community is supposed to be with one voice, but many times or occasionally there will be dissenting voices.

PAUL JAY Does the intelligence community blame Russia for the war? Or is the intelligence community aware of the coup in 2014, of the rigged election, of the Ukraine bombing and killing its own people in eastern Ukraine because they happen to be ethnic Russians? That information is available to them. But the narrative is that this was a color revolution generated internally because of the dissatisfaction of the Ukrainian people

against the pro-Russian president, and that it was a democratic uprising. That's the storyline. It's false, but that's the line that's put out. And so do members of the intelligence community, when they themselves are not being surveilled? Talk about the true observations that they have. I'm sure some do, but they're also, these are people who understand survival. You're not going to come out and make statements that are going to make you a target of your supervisors because you are rocking the boat. You know, you've got to, this is like that scene from Ben-Hur and the slave ships, you know. They want everybody rowing in the same direction.

They don't want anybody doing their own jazz riff. It's got a, you know, conformity is very much encouraged. Does the West truly blame Russia for this war? Or is the answer to that at the pencil you ask in the West? No, no, they genuinely do. There is no, at least in the published intelligence and the public statements of U.S. policymakers and intelligence officials, it's all upon Russia. It is Russia's fault. There is no attempt to understand that the United States and NATO had any role whatsoever in provoking this conflict. They ignore the fact that we put Aegis missile systems in Romania and Poland and how that is interpreted and perceived correctly by Russia as a potential nuclear threat to Russia.

So it's just, you know, where you sit depends upon what you see. Where's the United Nations in all this? Irrelevant. Completely irrelevant. Irrelevant because it's controlled by the West? Irrelevant because it doesn't have a military? Irrelevant because it couldn't by the West, irrelevant because it doesn't have a military, irrelevant because it couldn't care less. All of the above. In fact, this is what's interesting now about the emergence of BRICS. And if you recall, Xi Jinping of China said, eh, I'm not going to the G20.

Well, originally the G20 was set up to be, let's call the super UN organization, the cool kids club, all the popular countries would get together to rule the world. Well, now they've forced Russia out on the sidelines. Now China said, no, we're not going to go to that. Whereas China went to BRICS, and increasingly BRICS is beginning, you know, because India's in there and India sent a Dimash to the United Nations saying, hey, the Security Council is outdated. We're the largest country in the world. We ought to be on the Security Council. Fair case. So the United Nations is becoming increasingly irrelevant because it was used primarily as an extension of the United States and Europe to control the rest of the world. Are there neo-Nazis in the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian political leadership, literally neo-Nazis,

who would bring back the Nazi ideology of Germany in the late 30s and early 40s if they could? You know, that's like asking, are there Catholic priests in the Vatican? Absolutely. The 100%. You know, we've got the images, these, and the tattoos. The thing is, these guys are wearing tattoos. I mean, it's not like they're trying to hide it. They literally have swastikas tattooed onto their necks and throats and chests.

They have the swastikas.ed onto their necks and throats and chests. They have the swastikas. They have pictures of Adolf Hitler. They have SS symbology as well. Is this an effort to enhance their morale and esprit de corps, or do they really believe Nazi racial propaganda? They really believe it. We saw a group of them gather in Florida over the weekend, and they were chanting, you know, Jews out, and they were calling Laura Loomer, who is Jewish and conservative,

some of the most awful things. And one of the guys in that midst is a guy named Boneface, or he goes by the name of Boneface. name is mcclellan i believe and he claims he was sent by the cia to fight in ukraine there are pictures of him in uniform in as off combat battalions in ukraine and he's an american but uh this neo-nazi element has been very active in Ukraine and vice versa. These Ukrainian Nazis have been active in the United States. We got pictures of them on January 6th in the crowd inciting violence. Is the CIA fighting in Ukraine?

CIA will have contractors who are engaged in providing support to units that are engaged with combat. And what is a contractor? A veteran who belongs to some military veteran belongs to some sort of a company that holds itself out as soldiers for hire, that kind of contract? Yeah, it could be it could be that it could be a foreigner a foreign company that may actually have americans involved with it but the there have been cia personnel on the ground uh involved with providing this what they call intelligence support but this also goes goes out into actual small unit operations since the outbreak of the special military operation okay let's go to the uh events over weekend, Larry. Over the long holiday weekend, Russia and North Korea announced very publicly that President Putin and Kim Jong-un would be meeting in Vladivostok. How significant is that? And would President Xi be involved, or at least have to

have given his blessing first? Boy, I guess Putin and Jong-il in Korea, they didn't get the message that Putin's isolated and that Russia is a pariah in the world. That's right. You know, that's one of those memes we keep hearing that, oh, Putin's really losing. Yeah, he's losing so bad that King Jamil is going, hey, I need to go to Moscow to, if you will, sort of genuflect before the boss. This raises Putin's stature. You know, again, Putin's not going to Erdogan, and Turkey came to him. And this is, for China, of course it had their blessing. And it just underscores the fact that China and Russia are now working in tandem on the diplomatic front

to completely cut out the ability of the United States and to a lesser extent Europe pressure them and try to coerce them into doing certain things. And frankly, that message is starting to resonate all around the world. You're seeing it in Africa. They're throwing the French out as fast as they can and the French can't do anything about it. So this nonsense that Putin is diminished, the sanctions are working, Russia is weak. Is this seriously entertained by Jake Sullivan and senior intelligence community people? Do they seriously say these things when they're debating what to tell the president or even interacting with the president? Yeah, unfortunately so. You know, they're a little bit like Dorothy. They think they're wearing ruby slippers and clicking them together saying there's no place like home. There's, you

know, they keep repeating the mantra, maybe they'll wind up back in bed in Kansas. But, you know, the reality here is Russia has taken and seized this opportunity that came from being attacked by having the sanctions imposed and the effort to destroy it militarily. It has reformed its military. It has re-energized its defense industry. And it has become a leader on the international front in setting up an alternative world order that, frankly, is going to leave the United States on the sidelines. Paul Jay Is the Russian defense industry, what we call in this country the military-industrial complex, superior to ours in large measure because of their almost limitless supply of natural resources, which we don't have?

Dr. William Shatner Well yet that and coupled with the fact that these guys they're not they're not driven by politics they're not having to pay off congressmen and senators in order to produce needless or useless weapons system what the what the defense industry in Russia follows is a national defense plan which is geared to produce the weapons systems they need in order to defend Russia whereas the United States you know we're like boondoggle central it's whatever the lobbyist is ever able to convince Congress to build by God we build it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best weapons system or the

most effective it appears as though we now know that Russia has given or sold ICBMs to North Korea. And according to our friend and colleague, Ray McGovern, these ICBMs, if operated properly, can reach from North Korea to Washington and anywhere in between. Why would Putin have done this? I think it's more symbolic for the North Koreans as a gesture of friendship, because the fact of the matter is Russia doesn't need North Korea in order to create a nuclear threat to the United States. It has these things called submarines that are all over the Pacific and Atlantic that carry more than enough warheads

to decimate the entire United States. They've also come out with a new missile called the Sarmat. So this is not a critical part of Russia's national defense strategy or trying to intimidate the United States. It's more of a gesture to the North Koreans that, OK, you can trust us. We're not going to leave you defenseless against the Americans. But isn't Kim Jong-un notoriously unstable?

Isn't it dangerous to put this kind of weapons in his hands? I mean, North Korea has a security pact with China. Japan and South Korea have security pacts with us. This guy could start World War III, no? Well, we're, you know, compared to Joe Biden, Kim Jong-il is like a vision of sanity compared to that ice cream eating dementia patient. You know, what you're looking at here is when Donald Trump dealt with him, he wasn't a crazy little North Korean. He was seen as somebody that Donald Trump could talk to, could negotiate with, and you could have reasonable discussions.

But, you know, so much of U.S. foreign policy is built around demonizing foreign leaders and putting them into sort of cartoon caricatures that we can insult and attack without ever actually getting down to trying to figure out how do we work with this person in order to have a safe world, a peaceful world. the public alliance meeting and exchange of weaponry between North Korea and Russia took the American intelligence community by surprise, or we all just found out about it over the weekend and the CIA and company knew about it long ago? I don't know. I would hope they would have had advanced information on that. But what would be interesting to know is if they did not know, then that's a sign of how poor the U.S. intelligence collection system is, both with respect to Russia and to North Korea. That if we're finding out about it after the fact, that just highlights one of the major gaps in U.S. collection.

Got it. Larry, thank you very much, my dear friend. Much appreciated your insight and your experience. We'll see you Friday for our roundtable with that youngster McGovern. OK, sounds good. Thanks. All the best. Thank you more as we get it. Of course, Colonel McGregor coming up in five minutes right here at two o'clock. Eastern Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.