Former CIA Chief Who Urged For Iraq War To Serve as Trump Advisor

Former CIA Director, James Woolsey, a vocal advocate of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq who promoted allegations that Saddam Hussein harbored illegal weapons, will serve as a senior national security adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, the campaign announced, on Monday.

Woolsey’s hiring contrasted with Trump’s repeated assertions that he was a stalwart opponent of the invasion, although he had initially supported it.

In the announcement, Woolsey said he supports Trump’s plan to expand the US military, which calls for ending Pentagon budget caps and spending billions of dollars for additional troops, ships and aircraft.

Mr. Trump’s commitment to reversing the harmful defense budget cuts signed into law by the current administration, while acknowledging the need for debt reduction, is an essential step toward reinstating the United States’ primacy in the conventional and digital battlespace.

James Woolsey, Former Director, CIA

Woolsey, who servedas CIA chief under then-President Bill Clinton, for two years, also criticized the presence of classified information in emails stored on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s private server.

In an appearance on CNN, however, he called Trump’s plan to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States “a bad decision.” He also has warned about the threats posed by climate change, something Trump has called a hoax that benefits China.

Woolsey promoted the erroneous allegation that the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein backed al Qaida’s 11 September 2001, attacks on the United States.

In 2000, Woolsey briefly served as a corporate officer of a foundation that managed US funding for the Iraqi National Congress, the exile group that produced a series of defectors who peddled false information to bolster the allegations that Saddam was hiding illicit weapons programs. No such weapons or facilities have ever been found.

(With inputs from Reuters)