According to Timmerman: the “Shadow Warriors” are powerful, permanent insiders in the CIA, the Department of State, the Justice Department and the Pentagon. Their goal is to undermine President Bush and the legitimate war in Iraq. Their weapons are leaks, misinformation, and outright lies that are propagated by willing accomplices in the media. Their motivation is two-fold: as highly partisan leftists, they seek to undermine President Bush in order to remove him and his agenda from power. As entrenched Government employees, they’ll do anything to maintain the status quo. This includes preventing President Bush (or anyone else for that matter) from exposing their past mistakes and garnering support to change the culture that exists within these agencies.

So President Bush is fighting two wars: one against terrorists and one against the Shadow Warriors. When did it start? The State Department has always been a haven for dangerous left-wing operatives. One only has to read the seminal book: “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers to discover how successful the Communist Party was in placing operatives inside our State Department in the past. The most famous, of course, was Alger Hiss, a high-level State Department official that doubled as a Soviet Spy. The CIA and the Justice Department became more political during the Clinton years when Bill flooded the agencies with partisan Bureaucrats that entrenched themselves and created a culture impossible to control. The policies that came from these bureaucrats were damaging and directly lead to the intelligence failures that brought us 9-11 and the current War on Terror. Few can argue that leading up to 9-11, the performance of our Intelligence Agencies was dismal. The culture at these agencies-run-amok needed to be changed, and President Bush made it clear early on that he sought an overhaul. That was, in effect, a declaration of war against the Shadow Warriors.

Timmerman gives us some specifics: The CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Nigeria to investigate whether Iraq attempted to purchase enriched uranium. Joe Wilson came back and debunked the story thereby embarrassing President Bush and undermining his reasons for going into Iraq. The media ran with the story. The only problem was that the world intelligence community stuck by the evidence and Joe Wilson was exposed as a total fraud and liar. Mary McCarthy, a high-ranking CIA official, leaked information related to our use of secret prisons for interrogations of important Al-Qaeda captives. Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times used his Shadow Warrior sources to publish leaked details about our terrorist wiretapping program. This program has been instrumental in our preventing additional terrorist attacks and the leak only served to warn terrorists. Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte plotted the firing of Porter Goss, Bush’s CIA Director, so that he could alter the intelligence briefings for the President. Tyler Drumheller, the CIA’s European division chief was so mistrusted by our European allies that they stopped sharing information with him and prevented him from meeting with high-level informants. Most recently, a National Intelligence Estimate crafted by known Bush Administration opponents declared that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. This report did nothing but weaken our negotiating position with Iran and further discredit our Intelligence standing with the rest of the world. It has since been reported, of course, that Iran did not and has no intention of halting their nuclear programs.

The most damaging lie created and fostered by the Shadow Warriors and the media is that Iraq did not have Weapons of Mass Destruction and that Al-Qaeda had no connection with Iraq. Timmerman’s book exposes this lie by quoting King Abdullah II of Jordan, who, on April 17^th 2004 told the world that his intelligence operatives foiled a plot by Al-Qaeda to bring in from Syria 20 tons of Iraqi-made Sarin gas and detonate it in the capital city of Amman. King Abdullah estimated that the attack would have killed 20,000 people and destroyed the American embassy. This provides strong evidence that Iraq not only moved its WMD to Syria before the invasion but that there was also an operational link with Al-Qaeda. The book also includes reports, made public for the first time, that were sent to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, John Straw, by a British Spy known only as “Stephen”. Stephen was on the ground inside Iraq in the weeks prior to the U.S. invasion and personally saw the evacuation, cleanup and transportation of WMD stockpiles and production equipment. The operation was conducted by non-uniformed Russian special forces. Stephen was able to track the shipments to specific villages in Syria and Beirut. He got confirmation from the Ukrainian Head of Intelligence, General Ihor Smeshko who flat out refused to work with the CIA for fear of damaging leaks. This story was all but ignored by the Western media.

If you want more, you’re going to have to read the book. I know what you’re thinking though: why doesn’t President Bush expose the Shadow Warriors and use this information to garner support and refute the lies repeated about him and the War in Iraq. The answer is complicated: he understands the dangerous world in which we live and the powerful nature of such information. He puts America and its future ahead of opinion polls. The fact is: Saddam and Al-Qeada had powerful allies that we still need to work with in order to deal with the growing threats in Iran, China and North Korea. Exposing their involvement would only damage our chance of success and weaken our future national security. President Bush isn’t willing to make that trade.

Sources: 
        
       Kelley, Larry; “Timmerman Exposes Saboteurs in Our Government”; Human Events; 
            February 4^th, 2008 

        Timmerman, Kenneth R.; “Shadow Warriors” Crown Forum; 2007

...more columns by Todd A. Carges