VIPS to DNI Gabbard: ‘Ready and Equipped To Help’
Feb. 15—No sooner than she had been confirmed in her post, than the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) issued a short memo to President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, offering their assistance. “Ready and Equipped To Help,” this tenacious group of senior U.S. intelligence and military officials titled their memo. They report that they had extended the same offer to provide “objective, tell-it-like-it-is analysis,” to Joe Biden’s former DNI, Avril Haines, but she “had no use for such analyses…. With this memorandum, we offer to provide you and your associates agenda-free analysis—‘untreated reporting’ as President Truman put it. We hope that our record, particularly on Ukraine, as shown in our attempts to inform President Biden, will suggest to you that VIPS’s views are worth serious consideration.”
A list follows of the five memos, with links, they had issued to President Biden between May 2022 and March 2024 on the realities behind the war in Ukraine. Also included were the subjects and links for two other memos which demonstrate that their attempts to warn Presidents go back 22 years. The first was the VIPS Memorandum from February 5, 2003 on the subject Secretary of State Colin Powell’s (now-infamous) speech making the case for war against Iraq at the UN; the second was titled “U.S. Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims,” dated December 12, 2016. They note on the last: “With two trustworthy VIPS members on board, who had been Technical Directors at NSA, how could we get this one wrong? Please note the early date,” they add.
We reprint below the full VIPS memo.
MEMORANDUM FOR: DNI Tulsi Gabbard
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
SUBJECT: Ready and Equipped to Help
NOTE: The first in VIPS’ series of memoranda for President Joe Biden (listed below) made reference to a memo we had sent President-elect Biden on Dec. 20, 2020, titled “Don’t Be Suckered on Russia.”
In that memo, we said: “We stand ready to support you with objective, tell-it-like-it-is analysis.” Former DNI Avril Haines had no use for such analyses. You may recall her statement in Dec. 2022that the Russians were running out of ammunition and had no indigenous capability to produce what they were expending on the battlefield.
With this memorandum, we offer to provide you and your associates agenda-free analysis – “untreated reporting” as President Truman put it. We hope that our record, particularly on Ukraine, as shown in our attempts to inform President Biden, will suggest to you that VIPS’s views are worth serious consideration.
* * *
May 1, 2022
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Nuclear Weapons Cannot Be Un-invented, Thus …
REFERENCE: Our Memo of 12/20/2020, Don’t Be Suckered on Russia
“The growing possibility that nuclear weapons might be used, as hostilities in Ukraine continue to escalate, merits your full attention.”
* * *
Sept. 5, 2022
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: VIPS
SUBJECT: Ukraine Decision Time & Secretary of Defense
“If Austin tells you Kyiv is beating back the Russians, kick the tires”
* * *
Jan. 26, 2023
ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: VIPS
SUBJECT: Leopards to Ukraine: Decisions in an Intelligence Vacuum
“None of the newly promised weaponry will stop Russia from defeating what’s left of the Ukrainian army. If you have been told otherwise, replace your intelligence and military advisers with competent professionals – the sooner the better.”
“There is a large conceptual – and exceptionally dangerous – disconnect. Simply stated, it is not possible to “win the war against Russia” AND avoid WWIII. It is downright scary that Defense Secretary Austin may think it possible. In any case, the Kremlin has to assume he thinks so. It is a very dangerous delusion.”
* * *
January 25, 2024
ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: VIPS
SUBJECT: Throwing Good Money After Bad
“On Jan. 26 last year, we reminded you that National Intelligence Director Avril Haines had said Russia was using up ammunition extraordinarily quickly and could not indigenously produce what it was expending.”
“On July 13, you said Putin ‘has already lost the war.’ You may have gotten that from C.I.A. Director William Burns who, a week before, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post saying: ‘Putin’s war has already been a strategic failure for Russia – its military weaknesses laid bare.’ Both statements are incorrect. Nor is the war a ‘stalemate,’ as Jake Sullivan has claimed more recently.”
* * *
March 25, 2024
ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
FROM: VIPS
SUBJECT: The French Road to Nuclear War
“… And if France and the Baltics insist on sending troops into Ukraine, it must also be made clear that such action has no NATO mandate; that Article 5 will not be triggered by any Russian retaliation; and that the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including those nuclear weapons that are part of the NATO deterrent force, will not be employed as a result of any Russian military action against French or Baltic troops.
“Void of such clarity, France would be leading the American people down a path toward a nuclear conflict decidedly not in the interests of the American people – or of humanity itself.”
* * *
Our attempts to warn presidents go back 22 years.
Here’s our first VIPS Memorandum:
Powell’s UN Speech and the Case for War
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President
SUBJECT: Today’s Speech by Secretary Powell At The UN
February 5, 2003
* * *
And here is one that was particularly timely. (With two trustworthy VIPS members on board, who had been Technical Directors at NSA, how could we get this one wrong? Please note the early date.)
US Intel Vets Dispute Russia Hacking Claims
MEMORANDUM FOR: U.S. Senate
SUBJECT: Allegations of Hacking Election Are Baseless
December 12, 2016
* * *
FOR THE STEERING GROUP,
VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPs)
Bogdan Dzakovic, former Team Leader of Federal Air Marshals and Red Team, FAA Security, (ret.) (associate VIPS)
Graham E. Fuller, Vice-Chair, National Intelligence Council (ret.)
Philip Giraldi, C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq and Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003
Linda Lewis, WMD preparedness policy analyst, USDA (ret.)
Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East, National Intelligence Council & C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)
Scott Ritter, former MAJ, USMC; former U.N. Weapons Inspector, Iraq
Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.); Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)
Ann Wright, retired U.S. Army reserve colonel and former U.S. diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War.