This Could Become World War 3 Overnight... | Scott Ritter & Ray McGovern on Iran, China & Russia

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]They've already withheld them. What do you mean? Would they? China's got the They They turned it off.

[00:00:05]And they haven't turned it on and not not going to turn it on. The United States just fired all of our high-tech weaponry, all of our joint standoff rockets, all of our precision interceptors, and um you know, all the things we need to make the to to build these new ones um come down to a bottleneck called rare earth minerals, permanent magnets, and uh you know, Elon Musk was there. Elon Musk needs a lithium batteries. Uh China sort of has a corner on the global lithium market. Um you know, and and Donald Trump is such a fool. I mean, Elon Musk may be big deal here in the United States. Um the Chinese build more electric vehicles, better electric vehicles, uh in a more profitable manner than than Tesla ever can or ever will.

[00:00:53]Um you know, so the Chinese weren't impressed with Elon Musk. They're looking at him saying, "Well, I mean, they put a They put a chick next to him." Um you know, miss uh computer glass. You know, she's uh she's dropped out of school at 15, uh worked with her parents uh grinding glass, and then uh took a gamble, and she uh she bid on uh early um you know, uh glass for computers, and then when uh when you know, Apple did the uh touchscreen, she bid on that, and uh cornered the market. She's one of the richest people in the world right now.

[00:01:27]Uh that's impressive. None of the people Trump brought None of the people Trump brought is impressive compared to her.

[00:01:34]And she's just one of many Chinese business people who are truly impressive. But the American public didn't get to hear about this because we're focused on the propaganda that we spew, that the president spews. This is one of the most embarrassing trips ever made by an American politician. You talked about one China policy. Let's be clear.

[00:01:53]The one China policy was uttered by well, during the Reagan administration, I believe, and then immediately immediately back down.

[00:02:01]People never pick up on that.

[00:02:04]Immediately, Ronald Reagan came back and was compelled to issue statements that clarified that no, we don't believe in one China. We said we do, but what we believe is we're going to beef up Taiwan so China can never take it over militarily. And that's been the policy of the United States ever since. And we've reinforced that policy, reinforced that policy until Taiwanese government believes it's independent. Now, they know they can't make that final gesture, but they act as if they're de facto independent, and we do the same thing, sending speakers of the house and parliamentaries, and now we are basing American military in Taiwan. So, there is no such thing as a one China policy. We need to be damn clear about that. America does not believe in one China. We never have.

[00:02:50]Ronald Reagan threw it away, then took it back.

[00:02:53]Uh and that's the reality. Now, you'll Now, we're in a situation where the Chinese say, "Well, you're going to have to re-educate yourselves."

[00:03:01]And in the past, what we said is yeah, we got this we you guys don't want to hook and jab with us. We're the United States of America. We got the Pacific Fleet. We got the Air Force. We got the missiles. You don't want to do this. We got the nuclear weapons.

[00:03:16]And the Chinese, after we said we got the nuclear weapons one too many times, went, "Wait a minute. What they're threatening isn't a preemptive nuclear strike against our strategic nuclear capacity, which would therefore leave us you know, helpless in front of the rest of their We got to change that." So, they drilled a couple hundred holes in the western Chinese desert, uh filled them with DF-41s, one of the most advanced solid rocket ICBMs out there with multiple warheads, and they told the Americans, "Stick it in your ear, sunshine. You attack us with nuclear weapons, we take you out. We've achieved nuclear parity. You can't touch us now."

[00:03:51]And if when you take away the nuclear equation, now the Chinese are going, you want to play count your ships, count our missiles? Because it's basic math, even Marines as dumb as Scott Ritter, who only count on their fingers, can put this thing together. We got more missiles capable of destroying your ships than you have the means to shoot down these missiles, which means we will sink all of your ships and then flood Taiwan and destroy everything. And the final thing I'm going to say the this the again, why Donald Trump is the dumbest man on the planet.

[00:04:19]How dare you go to China and try and get them to open up rare earth minerals.

[00:04:26]For what reason? So you can rebuild your weaponry? You're stupid. But let's say you wanted to make that case to the Chinese. At the same time, you're playing stupid games with chip manufacturing.

[00:04:37]I mean, go back and reverse engineer every statement Donald Trump and the US government's made about chips, computer chips. We're going to deny the Chinese the ability to have have access to these this specific technology out of the Netherlands that's gone to Taiwan, and we're not going to let the Chinese do this because we want chip dominance.

[00:04:55]Chip dominance is what we want. We can't let the Chinese catch up with us.

[00:04:59]And yet the the people that are spewing this nonsense are now going to China saying, oh yeah, could you give us a rare rare earth minerals, please? But but the thing he's missing out on is the Chinese went yeah, okay, gosh, you're not going to give us the chips.

[00:05:12]Well, hmm, you guys do know that we spit out more computer engineers per year than you have uh in in the totality. And so we're going to basically take about 3 years worth of brain trust and focus them solely on catching up. They not only have caught up, they have surpassed. And this is why we have no leverage whatsoever. We we we negotiate dishonestly, we're liars, we're cheaters, we're the worst we are literally agreement incapable. Sergey Lavrov has hit the nail on the head.

[00:05:43]You know, Scott, now when you talk about when you talked about chips, um I don't feel real good, you know, so I heard ships, okay? And you're not mentioning our ace in the hole.

[00:05:54]That new battleship that's going to be bear Trump's name as the Trump battleship or something. I mean, that'll reverse the balance.

[00:06:02]>> [laughter] >> I mean, you talk about buying uh archaic things that worked for World War II.

[00:06:10]Anyhow, uh that's sort of a chips and chips is not only the chips, it's the ships. And uh they if I if I read correctly, they they can produce 30 ships in and many shipyards, whereas we're limited to two ships a year or something like that.

[00:06:26]They they produce 100 to 200 ships a year. We can produce at a max five.

[00:06:32]Again, that's marine math. I don't know how we catch up on that one. I mean, I'm I'm I'm pretty I'm pretty slow.

[00:06:37]>> difficult. Yeah.

[00:06:39]So, uh I think that uh going back to the big picture here, uh what what Trump heard was that uh Taiwan is not negotiable.

[00:06:51]Uh that there is this one China. Actually, one advantage of being as old as I am, Scott, is that you know, I was around working for Nixon. It was actually Nixon that uh had fixed that deal with Chas Freeman helping him in '70, '71, uh the one China policy which enabled us in '79 to recognize China. But you're right, that's Reagan kind of playing games with it. But uh you know, uh Trump's reaction in the in the airplane there uh suggested to me that well, he realizes this is something that he can't play any games with, uh less so given his lack of [snorts] capability with this navy and the destruction of everything else.

[00:07:34]So, I'm just wondering if even uh Trump is dense as he is, I didn't get the major message, which is uh look, uh strategic stability between two superpowers, and we are one right now, says China, is is the sine qua non for avoiding war, for avoiding conflict. And conflict, well, the only conflict we see is if you push us on Taiwan.

[00:08:04]And that was the word used. That was the word used. We got uh Xi Jinping, I think. We got in a conflict a conflict if if you push us on Taiwan. So, what what's the rest of it? Well, here's the Chinese. Look, um can't we just get along? I mean, like uh how about a win-win situation, you know?

[00:08:25]Uh we can help you in certain areas. Uh if you're if you're good, we might even open the spigot on rare earth, but you got to be good. I mean, uh Iran is too much. That's that's a bridge too far. So, I think it was a candid thing. I think it in a way it could be a salutary thing because not only Trump, but the others heard all this. And uh the the 1% of the upper 1%, those CEOs, they heard it, too. And I can't imagine anything other than being totally embarrassed and disappointed at the lack of any sign that really big deals were concluded to include the the rare earth minerals or whatever. So, yeah, that's how I come at that. Um it uh it satisfied Trump's ego.

[00:09:19]The pomp was terrific.

[00:09:22]The circumstances, not so much as far as Trump was concerned.

[00:09:28]But it was all humiliating, right? I mean, the pomp.

[00:09:32]You know, >> [laughter] >> the Chinese put on a precision military parade.

[00:09:37]We did that in Washington just a year ago, don't you remember when >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I remember the the lollygagging around and everything like that. It was humiliating. Um, you know, it it's just It I mean and then Trump Boeing You know, somehow Trump invented a contract that doesn't exist and will not exist. I mean, doesn't Trump know that because of the stupidity of his administration and you know, shutting down that that venue earlier that China all the Chinese airlines went out and bought billions of dollars worth of Airbuses?

[00:10:12]Um, and so there's not like there's there's not there's not like a Chinese airline out there going, "Yeah, we got a shortage of aircraft. We need to sign big contracts with Boeing." Um, you know, the Chinese wanted to buy 500 Boeing aircraft and it was the president, this in chief, that shut it down. Um, because we're American. We have all the levers in the world. Well, they just signed the big contract with uh with with with Airbus. And the last time I checked, um, Boeing isn't sitting there with a Chinese contract in hand. The Boeing Boeing has no clue at the time.

[00:10:43]The Chinese aren't talking about The This is what a mentally ill person does.

[00:10:47]He talks to himself. And the president is having conversations with himself.

[00:10:52]And that's why this is always a very dangerous thing.

[00:10:57]Uh, well, this just in. Uh, Trump thinks that the Thucydides trap is a Greek nightclub in Astoria, Queens.

[00:11:04]This is what he uh No, I'm confusing that with Plato's retreat on the Upper West Side.

[00:11:10]Uh, let me ask about uh Iran and Well, let me before that, uh Ray, you sent a note to me before the show to us.

[00:11:17]When Nixon went to China, there was still the Chinese-Russian tensions that they may have tried to play off. That's not the case today, is it? The US doesn't have that same leverage that it may have back in Nixon's day in order to arrange detente. Didn't they take that into account?

[00:11:35]Yeah, Joe, thanks for giving me this opportunity to just remind myself that I started working on Sino-Soviet relations. That was my portfolio in January of 1963.

[00:11:51]>> [laughter] >> Now, they were denouncing each other's, but but people like the hardliners know, you're just being deceived.

[00:12:02]They they really love each other cuz they're both communists.

[00:12:07]You're being deceived. And then we saw things like all photography, YouTube photography of 15 divisions, 15 Soviet divisions on the Chinese border. Okay, then we thought they saw them shooting each other against the river across the riverine borders. And then we noticed that the Chinese were claiming 1.5 square 1.5 million square kilometers in Siberia, territories seized under what the Chinese called unequal treaties.

[00:12:44]Were they unequal? Sure as hell were.

[00:12:47]Going back to the 17th century, a Cossack would go out into China, which it was China, put a Russian flag down there and say that that's ours. Okay, Treaty of Nerchinsk, 1689, I think, defined these things. And in a sense, the the Chinese would say, "You cheated us out of major sections of Siberia." Let me tell you one little anecdote here, which is relevant. We know about the Uyghurs in China. We know that they don't like the central government. And it occurred to us to ask our collectors, "Hey, I wonder are the are the Soviets broadcasting to the minorities there in Xinjiang, the Uyghurs.

[00:13:30]We found out, yeah, they were.

[00:13:32]But they were broadcasting in Uyghur.

[00:13:36]No.

[00:13:37]We found one Uyghur speaker in the United States, and he was terrific. And he he translated these What are the Russians saying? They say you got to you got to have a revolt against this tyrannical government. And it was it was inciting, inciting, inciting, okay?

[00:13:52]And then this one Uyghur speaker fell ill, and our capability became weaker and weaker. I'm sorry. Our capability became almost nothing until he got better.

[00:14:03]Just a little thing about how little inventive research or a little bit collection showed that this was really, really real. So, enough of that. Uh After uh well, when when Nixon and Kissinger got onto the fact that the the Chinese were really afraid that the Russians were going to do them in. And by that time, guess how many Soviet divisions were on the Chinese border?

[00:14:32]Chas Freeman tells me 40. 4 0, okay?

[00:14:37]Now, Chas and others that were pretty bright in the State Department at the time uh said, "Look, you know, we we think we can work this triangular relationship so uh that we can develop good relations with the Chinese, and then uh we'll we will leave that use that as a lever against the against the Russians."

[00:14:59]So, they did that. Now, we weren't onto that. It was very secret. But when Kissinger went to Beijing in 1971, and when he came back, I said, "Oh my God, this is going to be good because this will strengthen the US hand in dealings with Russia." And we told Kissinger that. And for the first time ever, we were not the skunk at the picnic. HE SAID, "OH, GOOD MEMO, GOOD MEMO."

[00:15:28]AND HE WENT ahead anyhow. And and the start agreement, the not the start, but the first uh strategic arms limitation talks, SALT number number one, which I was uh in which I worked on with my branch, Soviet foreign policy, in which I was privileged to go to Moscow to to be there on the signing and the Bolshoi Ballet and all that other stuff. Uh that was the result of our very clever manipulation, making sure that we we incentivized the Russians, the Soviets at the time, not to let China win a win a march in developing better relations with us.

[00:16:10]We had lots of indications of that. Uh some of us was slow to recognize it, but when I saw the quadripartite agreement on Berlin, okay?

[00:16:21]Access to Berlin. That came right after Kissinger was in in China, okay? Right right after Nixon went to China in January of 1972.

[00:16:32]Uh there was here you could connect these things.

[00:16:35]This quadripartite agreement on Berlin could not be It was an an imbroglio.

[00:16:40]Couldn't even French the the uh the French, the British, we and the Russian we couldn't figure it out. All of a sudden the Russians came by and said, "You know, what we think we worked that out." And we worked it out. So, all I'm saying is that that was the beginning of this rapprochement, and it was very instrumental in creating a triangular relationship, which now I don't know if you remember geometry, but now it's an isosceles triangle.

[00:17:09]Uh here's the big the big uh wing, Russia, China, and US at the short end of the stick. That's the way it is now. There is a triangular relationship, but it's two against one, and this is really a product of malfeasance on the part of US policymakers. We've driven them together. They've never been closer together, and I'll just add one more thing which I believe, but uh not everybody agrees, and that is before Putin decided that he had no other recourse other than to invade Ukraine to stop this army that had been trained and equipped by NATO for the previous eight years and the stop killing of Russians Russian people in the Donbas, what did he do? He went to Beijing. Oh, yeah. 4th of February, 2022.

[00:18:03]Now, that was big. They were I think Scott wrote the definitive work on that. Scott, you did something about 12 pages on that statement, this joint statement, if I remember correctly. I didn't have the time to do it.

[00:18:17]Uh about how close they were. There was no upper end to this relationship, they said, okay? Now, what's the significance of that? It was ceremonial because the Winter Olympics were just starting. So, as I reconstruct it, and this I think is is really powerful if it's true, and I believe it is, uh Putin would have had to say to his big brother, "Look, uh she I don't know. I know you feel strongly about violating other people's borders, but uh we're going to have to go into Ukraine, and uh we're going to do that just a couple of weeks. Uh I just want to let you know. Uh And uh she >> [laughter] >> she um Xi Jinping?

[00:19:02]You You You mean not until the Olympics are finished, right?

[00:19:07]>> [laughter] >> Uh yeah, right. That's of course.

[00:19:11]Uh the 20th of February Olympic Winter Olympics were were were uh finished. On the 21st, Luhansk and Donetsk declared independence, asked for help from Russia, and we had next 2 days the Russian Duma approved it, and you had the invasion of Ukraine with uh China's tacit approval.

[00:19:33]Now, there was also indications of more than tacit approval because China's rhetoric switched from Westphalia Westphalia where you don't violate anybody's other borders, right? Uh to every country has the not only the the right, but the the need to defend their core interests, and Russians have core interests in Ukraine just as we do in Taiwan.

[00:20:00]So, these are just uh just indications of how close they became they became even before uh Putin went into Ukraine. How China supported that even though, you know, Westphalia is important to China, they made an exception, and then 3 months after all this rhetoric was was was uh they have to, you know, you have to defend your core interests, 3 months later they went to, you know, Westphalia again. But, that was big. I mean, the Chinese going with this, and that's going to be coming to an end, I believe, this year. Um uh somebody has got to tell um Trump that you know, it's it's really over in Ukraine, and you have to make a deal there as well as with respect to Iran, and on Iran, the most important thing for you to know, Mr. President Trump, is that the Russians have said that for you to renew this war will be so sim nepriemlemo, okay?

[00:21:01]So sim is thoroughly uh completely.

[00:21:05]And some people are translating in particular. No, it's not in particu- it's so obscene. The whole business is completely un- unacceptable. And 3 days later, who said the same thing but Wang Yi, who very seldom uses those strong words. So, he said the same thing about um about the war in in uh Ukraine and the possibility of the US and and Israel renewing this. And uh so, when Putin uh goes to uh Beijing just 5 days after uh she is rid of Trump, and they're going to be in a catbird seat here, and they're going to work out a joint policy, it seems to me, where if with if things fall the right way, they can they can work out the kind of deal that will prevent a new attack by Israel and the United States, and uh paint enough lipstick this pig of defeat for Trump to allow him to claim Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. They signed this this thing right here that they'll never have a nuclear weapon. And so, how it worked, you guys. Uh the benefit of having such a lousy media in this country is most Americans have been brainwashed into thinking Iran is working on a nuclear weapon. So, this will be this will be a source of great gratification and applause. I think that they can make this happen. I sure hope so, uh because if Trump doesn't know he's in dire straits right now, uh he'll never know. And of course, Netanyahu is still the fly in the ointment. And I would not predict that Netanyahu would be unable to persuade Trump to do precisely what Netanyahu wants, yet once again. So, I can't predict >> But, tell us about the tell us about the this upcoming meeting between Putin and Xi now in in wait just a few days after Trump. What message do the US be getting from this? What understanding should they have about the relationship that China and Russia have?

[00:23:17]Does Does Washington understand this?

[00:23:20]Well, uh policymakers should understand this. Now, should is a different thing than do they?

[00:23:26]Uh one symptom of how ignorant people are on this very key question came during Biden.

[00:23:34]Uh June >> [clears throat] >> 2021, okay?

[00:23:40]Uh Biden has already flexed his muscle muscles, sends [clears throat] uh those people named Blinken and Sullivan to talk to the Chinese who are kind enough to come to Alaska.

[00:23:53]For what? To be read the riot act by Blinken and and Sullivan.

[00:23:58]Wang Yi said, "What?" They They actually had a strong argument before the press there before they ever started. And that was March, if memory serves, 2021. And Biden gets up at the same time and he says, "You know, China wants to be a great power in this world.

[00:24:15]That's not going to happen on my watch."

[00:24:19]So, there you have the hegemony attitude. I just add before I forget Biden at the very end, his last inaugural he's looking around at all these people that are really clapping hard for him in Congress, then he says, "Anybody in this room think that Putin will stop it Ukraine and it won't go to Poland and won't go to Baltic state? Anybody think that?" AND EVERYBODY SAID, >> [laughter] >> IT'S SO PATHETIC, YOU KNOW? AND THE THE THING THAT the Russian that the American people don't know is that Putin stopped six weeks into this damn war.

[00:25:02]There was a an agreement signed, ceasefire, Ukraine would not try to get into NATO.

[00:25:08]The other issues like Crimea would be discussed later. And the US and the UK came in and put the kibosh on that because they wanted to they wanted to weaken Russia and they pledged to support the Ukrainians uh no matter what costs to the very end, okay? So, nobody knows if Putin already stopped.

[00:25:30]He doesn't he doesn't want to take over the rest of the Ukraine. That would be really stupid. He's too clever for that.

[00:25:36]So, all that I digress here, but uh when they get together and it's you know really it's 5 days after after Trump leaves, I don't think this visit had been planned until it was pretty clear that Trump would succeed in in being invited to to I mean, he was invited long ago, but that the Chinese would still allow him to come, frankly, given what the the US had done in Iran.

[00:26:04]And I think the Russians then announced that yeah, Putin's going to Is he going first? No, no, he he goes second and then be the clean-up act. And as I say, they are they're they have a virtual alliance. They don't call it an alliance, but it's as it's stronger and it's military in nature when you come right down to it. And you know, if the Russia ever got in trouble in Europe, you could expect China to raise some hackles out there in the South China Sea or even the Taiwan Strait. They're that close, it seems to me. They wouldn't need to do that kind of thing because Trump has been defeated in Ukraine in Iran. And if if he doesn't realize that and he renews the war because Netanyahu tells him to do that, well, all bets are off because the Iranians, I think, will will decimate or obliterate, if you can excuse the expression, Israel as well as US bases, what's left of them, in that area. What we can transition to Iran now by asking Scott Trump is supposedly going to be going to Beijing to talk to the Chinese about their support for Iran. What happened with that?

[00:27:19]Trump holds no cards. Literally no cards. He has no cards.

[00:27:23]When you lose a war, you don't get to dictate the outcome of a war. You don't get to dictate how nations, you know, are are are are, you know, behave.

[00:27:32]You know, we lost the war. I don't know there there seems to be this you know this this stream of thought in the MAGA social media world that somehow the United States I mean, you see it. I mean, and this is stunning to me because you know, you have the president of the United States saying only 18% of uh Iran's missiles remain. Only 18%.

[00:28:00]And then you have the CIA come out and go, "Yeah, and 70 75% maybe up to 90." And then you have Iraq chief, the foreign minister, come out saying, "No, the number's 120%." Meaning not only have we reconstituted everything, but we're continuing to build.

[00:28:18]You have Bradley Cooper come out, the admiral, CENTCOM commander, say that Iran only has 13% of its ballistic missile production capabilities.

[00:28:27]Yet the Iranians are continuing to produce missiles at a at a rate that exceeds the production rate before this conflict.

[00:28:36]This isn't bad intelligence.

[00:28:39]This is straight out lies. Straight up lies being told by the president and by uh the CENTCOM commander. Um, now it's not the first time a CENTCOM commander has lied for political effect.

[00:28:52]I remember during the Gulf War I uh I received a I was the battle damage assessment officer for SCUDs and uh got the uh got the report that uh you know, our F-15s had taken out 7 to 12 SCUDs uh outside of Al Qa'im and I went, "Well, damn, I can't wait to see that report."

[00:29:10]And it comes rolling in along with the videotapes and I look at it and I go, "Well, this is problematic because um how can you have a SCUD launch and have uh 7 to 12 SCUDs instead of moving away from the SCUD launch coming towards the SCUD launch? And as they come in, they have their headlights on.

[00:29:28]That's the most untactical thing I've ever seen in my life. And instead of SCUDs, these look like Jordanian fuel tankers and they're parking next to a truck stop that everybody knows is a normal stop-off point for Jordanian fuel tankers to do on the way in." I said, "These aren't SCUDs. These are They're literally Jordanian fuel tankers."

[00:29:48]>> [clears throat] >> And uh Norman Schwarzkopf was under so much pressure uh to be seen as killing SCUDs that he took Buster Glosson, who was the head of the Air Force uh you know, black hole the operational planning group, and they went on national TV and showed the videos and said we killed uh 12 SCUDs and that led to me um confronting uh telling Schwarzkopf I wouldn't falsify an official report and getting fired um from my job. They rehired me later because we bucked it up to Colin Powell and Colin Powell sent it over to Rear Admiral McConnell, the intelligence chief, who had his boys look at it and girls, and they said, "Nah, Ritter's right." And uh they reversed it, but my point is um it's not the first time that a four-star admiral general lied to the public uh because of political requirements.

[00:30:38]He has to say that we're destroying this. I can guarantee you cuz I lived through it.

[00:30:45]They have weak-ass officers in their battle damage assessment plane who were told "Every time we drop a bomb, we're killing missiles." And they went, "Oh, yes, sir. We agree with that formula.

[00:30:56]Every time you drop a bomb, we're going to go ahead and degrade them 7.6% because that's the formula that my boss told me to apply." Instead of somebody going, "Bull, you know what?" I mean, that's what a good analyst does. I don't claim to be the best analyst in the world, but I have integrity. Uh meaning that I actually look at a problem and come up with a an answer based upon the facts. We have an entire intelligence community right now whose only job is to say, "Sir, yes, sir. Three bags full, sir. What do you want me to do?" I know this because I had them throw the same damn algorithms at me in order to justify starting the ground war because we weren't blowing anything up. I was putting out the photograph saying, "You You claim you destroyed this. The B-52s that went in there missed the target by 200 m. The bomb line is here, the trench line is here. You can't say anything was killed." And they said, "Nope. Calculate the tonnage of bombs and then reduce the uh the operational capacity of the Iraqis by a certain percent." And I said, "Then this isn't battle damage assessment. This is >> [laughter] >> This is just fiction. Pure fiction."

[00:31:59]And Admiral Cooper's uh presentation before the United States Senate was 100% fiction, politically driven fiction. We can't win a war if that's how we're reporting this war.

[00:32:10]The reality is we have had zero impact on Iran's ballistic missile production capability. They took all of their high-capacity production to include solid rocket motor capabilities and moved it from the Parchin fixed facilities, which we bombed, outside of Tehran, which were empty when we bombed them, and moved them underground, and they're pumping out missiles.

[00:32:31]And we know this is the case. If I know it, I can guarantee you the intelligence analysts know it except they're told not to know it.

[00:32:40]They're told no, we don't look at that.

[00:32:43]We solely focus on 15,000 targets, this many bombs, this much tonnage, and therefore we must have achieved the following. It's the same damn trap we fell into in Desert Storm to lie about the effectiveness of air power. And this is the problem. The Iranians right now are so strong so strong.

[00:33:04]Um the United Arab Emirates is about to find out fatally so. Um you know, that they're making the mistake of their life by pretending that they can ally themselves with Israel. I mean, they need to look at a map and realize how far away Israel is and how close Iran is and how vulnerable everything is. They claim they're going to build a pipeline.

[00:33:23]That pipeline won't exist because the port that's going to receive the pipeline is going to disappear in a holocaust of fire brought in by the Iranians. Uh the same thing with Abu Dhabi and and and in and in Dubai. What happens when you take out the water desalinization plants? Now they have no fresh water. Then you take out the power generation plants and they have no air conditioning. And it's 50° already. It's going to get up to 54 pretty soon. And you have no water, no air conditioning, you can't live in Dubai. The the Burj Al, whatever the hell they call it, the big tall building, no one's going to be in that building. It's going to be empty. The whole city is going to be empty. That's the future of the United Arab Emirates. And Israel's about to learn that lesson, too. The Iranians have had it. They're finished. They're done. No more 30-year-old missiles coming in. They're coming in with the big stuff, the good stuff that they've been building in underground factories that we didn't eliminate.

[00:34:13]We are lying to ourselves. Lying to ourselves. And you can't win a war when you lie to yourselves. I'm not saying that we could win it if we told the truth, but we damn sure could avoid making bigger mistakes. But this president has created a situation because it's a cult of personality in America. This isn't your standard chief executive.

[00:34:36]This is a malignant narcissist.

[00:34:39]And we have a cult of personality.

[00:34:41]Um I mean I just got back from Washington, D.C.

[00:34:44]They drape banners from buildings with Donald Trump's image on it if he's some sort of, you know, all imposing guy. No, he's just an idiot who's going to be in office for 2 more years, maybe. Uh he's not the They want to put his face on They're literally talking about putting his face on Mount Rushmore. He's talking to Schumer saying I'll do things for you if you put my name on this on this rail building and on this airport. He's a narcissist. He He just put a golden idol of himself in Mar-a-Lago and had religious figures surrounded and pray to God. Doesn't he read the Bible and understand that that's sort of what you don't do if you believe in God? You don't put up gold idols to yourself. This man is sick.

[00:35:27]This man is warped. This man is demented. And therefore he surrounds himself not with people who will tell him no.

[00:35:34]I'm not claiming to be the bravest man in the world, but I was a junior captain and I told a four-star general, "No.

[00:35:40]You're wrong. It's a lie." And I won.

[00:35:44]And I won.

[00:35:45]Let me pick up on that if I may. Um Um I read Colin Powell's You can't really call it a memoir. It was this big book that would prepare him to be run for a president if he wanted to. He later said that his wife said he didn't want She didn't want to Anyhow, it was a really good book. Uh I I read it as my Irish grandfather would say, I I read the whole thing black and white, okay?

[00:36:16]So, [clears throat] here I I get this incredibly interesting story about Oh my God. Uh the Schwarzkopf, you remember him? He's claiming that they they [clears throat] zapped six or seven SCUDs, okay? And oh, what And then the next day, oh no, AP reports that they were uh they were oil tankers, so it was Jordanian oil oil tankers, okay? Well, the backstory that Colin Powell tells in this thing is that this analyst wouldn't wouldn't agree with Schwarzkopf. And so Schwarzkopf said, "SCREW HIM. GET RID OF HIM." AND SO HE FIRED HIM. BUT, somebody backchanneled Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, uh from DIA or somewhere else, they said, "Hey, this guy's right. Haven't you seen the AP report here? They were just oil tankers." And so Colin Powell says, "So I called up Schwarzkopf and I said, uh General, uh we we have we have a lot of disagreement here in Washington. DIA and other people saying you got an analyst there that says that those were oil tankers and NOT SCUDS."

[00:37:33]"WHAT?"

[00:37:34]"IF YOU WANT TO HEAR A STRING of invective, according to Powell, you he never heard the likes of it. And the final word was, 'You You want to run this war? You want to run this war? You want to let me run this war, for God's sake.'" And Colin Powell hangs up. And then Powell says, "Well, that's the way it goes. Um >> [laughter] >> that was the the lesson for me, the instruction. Uh a guy who's who's running a war, even though he's lying through his teeth, you don't say next time tell the truth. You don't even rejoin there, you say, "Okay, you fired the guy." And >> [laughter] >> Schwarzkopf says later he was rehired because somebody honest there. Now, the guy who is uh advising uh Cowal at the time was Admiral McConnell, right?

[00:38:28]And so, McConnell McConnell was quite willing to go along with this charade because Schwarzkopf outright like McConnell, but So, anyhow, uh Naive McGovern is with Scott Ritter speaking somewhere about 3 years ago. And it it occurs to him, "Hey, Scott, you were in that intelligence unit there with this Scott That's the guy. Do you know who that guy was that that told the truth and got fired and then re-" And he looked at me and he says, "You put me on, huh, Ray?"

[00:39:00]I said, "No, I'm not." And I said, "Oh, sh- Are you?"

[00:39:06]So, here's a guy that's been through it and who's done the right thing, rehired because he was doing the right thing, but most people don't get rehired because the Jordanian tankers don't appear all of a sudden. I have one other illustrative example here, which goes back even further. You've heard of Vietnam.

[00:39:29]Uh let me tell you how intelligence was misused with respect to Vietnam.

[00:39:34]I'll try to make it short.

[00:39:37]Uh General Westmoreland out there was giving killing figures every every week to the press in Saigon saying, "Oh, we got 300 killed there. We got 1,000 killed this week in Saigon."

[00:39:49]And then all of a sudden, there became indications that, you know, there was still more and more VC, still more and more communists under arms in South Vietnam. Friend of mine, Sam Adams, looked at this and said, "My god, there 400 to 500,000 Vietnamese under arms in South Vietnam."

[00:40:08]And so, they sent them out to Saigon, and General Westmoreland's folks said, "No, no.

[00:40:13]Don't can't be more than 299,000."

[00:40:17]>> [laughter] >> 299,000? What do you mean? Well, they worked out the regiments, you know, this regiment only has you know, 300. No, they a regiment has 500. So I said, "No, no, we say 300." Anyhow, it was total total falsity, okay? Now, I'm having lunch with Sam Adams at CLA headquarters, August uh 19 67, okay?

[00:40:42]Sam had made quite a stir because he had convinced the whole community that he was right and Westmoreland was lying.

[00:40:50]The whole community except the US Army and Army Intelligence. So I said to Sam, "Sam, my god, what's going on with Westmoreland? Usually when a general's in command of a war, he he he he he exaggerates the strength of the enemy.

[00:41:05]Why the hell the hell would Westmoreland would downplay it?" And Sam says, "My god, they He says, 'Look, they've been counting these killings and the math doesn't work.'" And he said, "Oh, as a matter of fact, Ray, a cable came in from Saigon just this morning. It was No Dis."

[00:41:22]I went up and read it. No Dis means it doesn't get out of the director's office, like no dissemination. What did it say, Sam? Well, it was from General Abrams.

[00:41:32]Oh, General Abrams?

[00:41:34]Abrams tank? Yeah, same general. A good tanker during World War II? Excellent tanker. Patton said that next to him Abrams was the best tanker.

[00:41:46]Does he have any political acumen? No, because he wrote this this this cable and it said and I quote, I had memorized it.

[00:41:56]"We can't possibly accept the higher figures for enemy strength, however well documented they are, because we would because the we would have to acknowledge that to the press in Saigon and uh no matter how many caveats we adjust to to explain this, uh it would leave a very bad impression, a deleterious impression on the war, okay? So, Sam Adams' estimates have to be dissed. So, what happens, okay? Sam said, "That's what the cable said." I said, "Sam, people in Washington are going to go not go along with that." He said, "Well, let's see." They had a national intelligence estimate. Sam wrote it. He got everybody to coordinate except the US Army, and they had a big meeting. You just said the United States Intelligence Board, the big wigs from all 16 agencies at the time, right?

[00:42:52]Sitting around the table.

[00:42:53]Richard Helms, director, okay? He said, "Okay, how about this estimate?" And everybody agrees except Army. "No, we don't agree. We have to have have a footnote." So, uh Helms said, "All right, we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll revisit this." And he goes back in the room and he brings Sam and a couple others, and he says to Sam, "You don't understand. Uh I can't agree to this estimate when Westmoreland is saying that. You know, my primary duty says Director Helms, Richard Helms, "My job is to protect the agency.

[00:43:27]And there's no way I can protect the agency if I get involved in a pissing match with the US Army at war. So, put that estimate aside." Uh Sam, "Well, we'll downplay this thing. We'll go with the figures that Westmoreland has." Now, that is the summer 1967.

[00:43:50]Two months later or three months later, January, February 2000 1968, you had the Tet Offensive, and how many people do you do you think invaded every town, Hamlet, city, and town in in that South South Vietnam? Well, it wasn't only 299,000, it was like 500,000, okay? Then, you know, the the results of that were that uh that uh LBJ decided, well, he had been misled. Had he been misled? Yes, he had been misled. And uh and he decided not only uh to go to negotiations and to stop the bombing, but not to run for office again.

[00:44:32]Now, one other thing which is equally important.

[00:44:36]Uh and that is that uh Sam Adams' figures were revealed, they were leaked to the to the press.

[00:44:45]What happened was in early March Yeah, early March 2000 and I'm sorry, 19 1968 there was a fellow at a very high Les Gelb.

[00:45:02]We'll learn that later. He was deputy Secretary of Defense, right?

[00:45:08]So, what did he do?

[00:45:09]He knew that Westmoreland was in town to request 206,000 more troops to go into Cambodia, up through Laos, maybe into North Vietnam itself, and finally finish this damn thing, okay?

[00:45:25]Les Gelb leaked those figures to the New York Times, I think it was on the on the 9th of March 1968.

[00:45:35]A fellow who knew about Sam Adams' estimate, his name was Daniel Ellsberg.

[00:45:41]He said, "Oh my god, look. Westmoreland, it's known now that he wants 206,000 more troops, and he's going to get them if he persuades LBJ. Why don't I leak Sam Adams' figures?" Which Dan did, his first leak ever. So, March uh 1968. That was a week later and and later then then LBJ and we know this convened this what do they call it the smart smart people smart men panel, okay?

[00:46:16]You had all all the usual suspects and he said you know and this is a direct quote with all these leaks I've lost support in this war. I was going to give Westy the 206,000 to continue the war and prosecute it faithfully and successfully.

[00:46:39]Now I can't do that. I'm going to go to negotiations and I'm not going to even run for president anymore. That's what happened. So what's the lesson there? One is that you can leak and you can leak if you're the the assistant secretary of defense and you can leak if you're Dan Ellsberg even before he leaked the rest of the stuff.

[00:46:59]And leaks really help and the the the other point teaching point of course is how deceitful generals or admirals are at war. They they have a well they have their own pride and so forth and Schwarzkopf was no exception and McConnell is no McConnell later became director of national intelligence. And so you know these guys can still bubble up if they if they play the game right and tell Let me go to Scott right right let me go to Scott.

[00:47:29]Helms was a disgrace to the intelligence community when he gave in to the army.