On February 7 , 2003 , on the eve of the Iraq War , VIPS released a " Memorandum for The President " criticizing U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell 's speech before the United Nations ( UN ) , and warning against " a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic " : Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism , but for the wrong reasons . The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario . Indeed , it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future . Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially . ... With respect to possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons , it has been the judgment of the US intelligence community for over 12 years that the likelihood of such use would greatly increase during an offensive aimed at getting rid of Saddam Hussein . " VIPS followed up with ten further memos throughout 2003 and early 2004 , " assessing what the Bush Administration knew about Iraq before , during , and after the war , and how that intelligence has been used – and misused . " In May 2003 , '' The New York Times '' columnist Nicholas D. Kristof said that widespread outrage among intelligence professionals had led to the establishment of VIPS . After the CIA chief weapons inspector David Kay in 2004 announced no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction could be found in Iraq , Michael W. Robbins opined in the magazine '' Mother Jones '' that VIPS " produced some of the most credible , and critical , analyses of the Bush Administration 's handling of intelligence data in the run-up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq . " On August 3 , 2010 , VIPS publicly released another " MEMORANDUM FOR : The President " claiming that the government of Israel has a record of deceiving the U.S. government and estimated that Israel would unilaterally attack Iran " as early as this month . " After the Ghouta chemical attack in Syria , VIPS issued an " open letter " to President Obama stating that " former co-workers " and " numerous sources in the Middle East " had informed them that Syrian government forces were not responsible for the attack , contrary to the position of the US government and foreign intelligence agencies . The letter stated that there was instead " a strong circumstantial case " that the incident was a " pre-planned provocation by the Syrian opposition and its Saudi and Turkish supporters " . Muhammad Idrees Ahmad , writing in '' The New Republic '' , criticized the letter 's reliance on anonymous sources and stated that its " most sensational claims " appeared to be largely " plagiarized " from an article written by Yossef Bodansky and republished by " conspiracy site " '' Global Research '' . Ahmad characterizes Bodansky as " an Israeli-American supporter of Assad 's uncle Rifaat . " Ahmad also noted that one of the letter 's signatories — Philip Giraldi — cited dubious sources related to the Ghouta attack in a piece for '' The American Conservative '' , including Alex Jones 's '' Infowars '' . Ahmad concluded that the VIPS letter was " exceptional in its shoddiness . " In December 2016 , VIPS released a memorandum criticizing allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections as " evidence-free " . The memorandum asserted that the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak was the result of an internal leak and not a Russian hack
Ghouta chemical attack
Ghouta chemical attack
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity