In a world of Democrats, there will be time for them to make profits.

Now is not that time.

And Republicans.

I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.

You need a voice of liberty.

Look no further.

You've found it.

Tom Woods.

Beware, citizen.

You are now departing from the world of allowable opinion.

The Tom Woods Show.

Welcome to the Tom Woods Show, episode 415.

Today we're taking on a bit of the conventional wisdom, which holds that, yes, yes, in retrospect, we may be able to say that the war in Iraq was a mistake, but surely no one can dispute that the surge worked.

Well, what was the surge, and what exactly do we mean by worked? That's what we're

going to talk to Ray McGovern about today. Ray McGovern is a retired CIA officer. He was a CIA

analyst from 1963 to 1990. In the 1980s, he chaired national intelligence estimates and prepared

the president's daily brief.

He was responsible for the analysis of Soviet policy in Vietnam, and he received the intelligence commendation medal at his retirement, but he returned it in 2006 in protest at the CIA's involvement in torture.

In 2003, he co-founded veteran intelligence

professionals for sanity, and this group issued a letter before the 2003 invasion of Iraq

stating that intelligence analysts were not being listened to by policy makers. So a very

important figure, Ray McGovern, and I can think of no one

...