By Sari Gelzer, TruthOut.org

Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps the country’s most famous whistleblower, fears that before the Bush administration leaves office they will try to attack Iran.

Indeed, Ellsberg’s argument gained merit as George W. Bush increased his rhetoric against Iran when he delivered his final State of the Union Address. Bush accused Iran of training militia extremists in Iraq, and emphasized the US will confront its enemies.

In a wide-ranging interview with Truthout, Ellsberg uses insight from his experience as a Pentagon analyst under the Lyndon B. Johnson, and later, the Nixon administration, to discuss Bush’s plans to begin a war with Iran, the role of the press to give whistleblowers exposure, and how American democracy can be restored.

Due to Ellsberg’s experience working within the government, I wanted his insight into how the Bush administration is attempting to begin a war with Iran.

When I highlight his experience working for Secretary of Defense Robert Macnamara in 1965 to draft a speech with the goal of rationalizing and gaining public support for the Vietnam War, Ellsberg gives a very long sigh.

“That was not my finest hour that I look back on. That was something that I am ashamed of,” he tells me, with a heavy heart.

Ellsberg wishes he spoke out against the Vietnam War sooner. As a civilian working for the government, he says his oath was always to the Constitution and he violated that oath until the day he decided to leak the Pentagon Papers in 1971, to reveal the war was unlawful.

Â (Original Article)