There is going to be a very interesting event, sponsored in part by the AU History Department, at American University, Ward Circle Bldg, Room 2 on Wednesday, September 8 at 8:00 pm concerning whistleblowers. The speakers will include:

Daniel Ellsberg, Former Defense and State Department official who released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971

Coleen Rowley, Special agent, Minneapolis FBI, Named Person of the Year in 2003 by Time Magazine

Sibel Edmonds, Former FBI Translator fired for revealing coverups of pre 9/11 warnings and of possible espionage

Katharine Gun, Former translator in GCHQ, the British equivalent of the National Security Agency, who was put on trial for releasing NSA memo seeking British assistance in bugging offices and homes of UN Security Council members prior to vote on Iraq

Scott Ritter, Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector, who challenged government claims on WMD in Iraq

Mary Ann Wright, Former Acting Ambassador in Afghanistan, who resigned from the Foreign Service as Deputy Chief of Mission in Mongolia on March 19, 2003 (the day bombing began in Iraq) to protest US foreign policy

John Brown, Former Foreign Service officer who resigned because of the Iraq war

Ray McGovern, 27-year veteran of CIA, formerly a briefer to several presidents on the President's Daily Checklist, who co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

David MacMichael, Veteran CIA analyst and VIPS co-founder who testified to World Court on U.S. covert actions in Nicaragua

Major Frank Grevill, Danish intelligence analyst who released his own classified analyses from before the war, asserting lack of foundation for the charges of WMDs in Iraq being echoed by Danish government and is currently facing trial in Denmark

Karen Kwiatkowski, Recently retired Lt. Col., who served in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans under Douglas Feith and revealed that office’s misrepresentations in building the case for invasion of Iraq

I believe all of these people in the same room will produce a very powerful statement on the true nature of government.