Thanks folks. Thanks Barb. Thanks Patrick. And thanks to FDL.

Yup, our time is drawing to a close. As the host, I want to thank you, Patrick, for answering our questions and taking part in this discussion. My (Stetson) hat is off to you also for your courage in standing up for the truth and for our vets. Your story is a very moving one and I hope many, many people read your book and learn how you helped bring this issue of Gulf War Syndrome to the American public. On behalf of FDL, thanks for being here today and good luck in the future.

Very good point about the POTUS. I too thought that was a serious mistake. It signalled that past crimes would not even be investigated. And that hurts our democracy and our republic. Other countries have tried past leaders who comitted crimes. South Korea, for example, tried and conficted two former president who, as generals, led a bloody miitary coup in 1980. The country was strengthened by that. The dissident leader who they jailed and later become president pardoned them. Yet here in America people who break the law are glorified, given time on Fox and other networks to say whatever they want.

“Aggressive, probing oversight.” Aye, there’s the rub. If they do that, they’ll never go back to their former agencies, right?

There’s been lots of talk lately about the lack of accountability in high places. At the Academy Awards, the director of a film on the financial crisis noted that no bank executives were ever prosecuted for acts that nearly brought the US economy down. I commented afterwards that a country that doesn’t prosecute war criminals won’t go after financial crooks. It seems we’ve set a very poor example in this country by allowing people like Dick Cheney break laws against torture and other things. How in your estimation can be have a better system of justice in national security? It was criminal (to me) how the CIA and DoD tried to stifle information on Gulf War Syndrome.

Getting back to how Congress works, do you think the intelligence committees have too many staffers who come out of the IC and then go back after their service? Obviously these staffers need security clearances – but wouldn’t it be better to have staffers without an institutional connection to, say, the CIA or the NGA?

So obviously you think these cuts were not justified?

Look how they treated the general, Taguba, who investigated Abu Ghraib.

Some passages in your book are blacked out. Are these sections that you tried to keep in but lost out in your legal fights?

At the top of our session you said this:

Look at the world from above, whether your using satellite imagery or video from a drone. Google Earth would have been classified TOP SECRET/RUFF SENSITIVE 20 years ago, had it existed. It’s all about being able to distinguish trucks from cars, tanks from armored personnel carriers, etc.

My question – now this stuff is used by all. Doesn’t that argue against the need to classify so much of our intelligence abilities – the sources & methods that the IC seeks to protect so much? In other words, is too much of our capabilities secret?

That’s interesting because Congress has just given GAO new oversight powers in intelligence – at least I think that passed.

Would you encourage young people to join the intelligence community today despite what you went through? If so, where would you advise them to focus their efforts? NGA? CIA?

Your whistleblower proposal is excellent. What about the IGs? Is there a way they could be strengthened to deal with whistleblowers?

Putting aside the wisdom of the current Afghan war, which many of us disagree with fundamentally, how would you like to see the NGA and IC working to track the possibility (or real use) of chemical and bio weapons by the Taliban or Al Qaeda elements? Is there a better way for information from the battlefield to be used to inform the intel agencies about where to focus?

Are there reforms that could be made to ease the way for whistleblowers like yourself? Also, I wanted to ask – did you ever go to the CIA IG, or did I miss that?

Actually the bulk doesn’t go to the Blackwaters, XEs, etc, but to about 100 companies, including them but encompassing all the major defense contractors and lots of so-called Beltway Bandits that supply certain kinds of technology useful to one or more of the agencies.

The last part of your book is a riveting account of how you went back and forth between CIA and Capitol Hill trying to unearth the story of Gulf War Syndrome, and how both CIA and DoD tried to shut you up and keep the story from getting beyond congressional investigators. Can you summarize some of what you learned about fighting the bureaucracy like this? You went through holy hell to find the truth on the chemical weapons used.

Getting back to my question on Central America, and Jeff’s on Sudan (#58), how do you think US imagery assets should be used to track human rights abuse, refugee flows, etc, even in countries where we’re not at war or where we don’t have “strategic” interests?

Interesting – I’ve been re-reading that too (for the Cuba stuff). Of course Vietnam & IndoChina were heavily contracted, but mostly in the area of logistics – setting up the infrastructure, ferrying troops around, etc. The use of contractors to actually analyze intelligence and function as CIA assets came much later. But the Vietnam era is an important piece in the whole history of outsourcing.

Why was that a source of friction? Wouldn’t they want the signals stuff to augment their intel?