Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Washington, D.C.
FormationFebruary 2003
TypeNon-profit

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) is a group of former officers of the United States Intelligence Community formed in January 2003. In February 2003, the group issued a statement accusing the Bush administration of misrepresenting U.S. national intelligence information in order to push the US and its allies toward that year's US-led invasion of Iraq. The group issued a letter stating that intelligence analysts were not being heeded by policy makers. The group initially numbered 25, mostly retired analysts.[1]

The group has later been implicated in support for Russian propaganda regarding the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections and support for the debunked conspiracy theory that Seth Rich and the DNC, not hacking by the Russians, was responsible for the leak of stolen DNC emails.[2] There has also been speculation that VIPS, and in particular William Binney and Robert David Steele, may have been involved in recruiting the networks that became the QAnon pro-Trump conspiracy cult.[3][4] Leonid Bershidsky wrote that in spite of favorable coverage in 2003, by 2017 VIPS was only promoted by "non-mainstream publications that are easy to accuse of being channels for Russian disinformation".[5]

  1. ^ "Ex-CIA Accuse Bush of Manipulating Iraq Evidence". Fox News. Associated Press. March 17, 2003. Archived from the original on January 8, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2014.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference washington post was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Heavy.com was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Financial Times 2020 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Bershidsky was invoked but never defined (see the help page).