Editor's Note: Daniel Ellsberg, the former Defense Department analyst
who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers history of the Vietnam War,
offered insights into the looming war with Iran and the loss of
liberty in the United States at an American University symposium on
Sept. 20.

Below is an edited transcript of Ellsberg's speech:

I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran,
which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of
governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a
police state.

If there's another 9/11 under this regime ... it means that they switch
on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been
patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked
out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by
the Republicans and so forth.

Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of
us? ... They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or
they may not. But if they're not now they will be after another 9/11.

And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on
Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran - an escalation -
which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in
this country, including detention camps.

It's a little hard for me to distinguish the two contingencies; they
could come together. Another 9/11 or an Iranian attack in which Iran's
reaction against Israel, against our shipping, against our troops in
Iraq above all, possibly in this country, will justify the full
panoply of measures that have been prepared now, legitimized, and to
some extent written into law. ...

This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the
successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on
the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit
it.

Will Hillary Clinton as president decide to turn off NSA after the
last five years of illegal surveillance? Will she deprive her
administration her ability to protect United States citizens from
possible terrorism by blinding herself and deafening herself to all
that NSA can provide? I don't think so.

Unless this somehow, by a change in our political climate, of a
radical change, unless this gets rolled back in the next year or two
before a new administration comes in - and there's no move to do this
at this point - unless that happens I don't see it happening under the
next administration, whether Republican or Democratic.

The Next Coup

Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has
occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that
a coup has occurred. It's not just a question that a coup lies ahead
with the next 9/11. That's the next coup, that completes the first.

The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of
our Constitution, ... what the rest of the world looked at for the last
200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world - in
checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual
rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an
independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment.

There have been violations of these principles by many presidents
before. Most of the specific things that Bush has done in the way of
illegal surveillance and other matters were done under my boss Lyndon
Johnson in the Vietnam War: the use of CIA, FBI, NSA against
Americans.

I could go through a list going back before this century to Lincoln's
suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War, and before that the
Alien and Sedition Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of
those presidents were in fact what I would call quite precisely the
current administration: domestic enemies of the Constitution.

I think that none of these presidents with all their violations, which
were impeachable had they been found out at the time and in nearly
every case their violations were not found out until they were out of
office so we didn't have the exact challenge that we have today.

That was true with the first term of Nixon and certainly of Johnson,
Kennedy and others. They were impeachable, they weren't found out in
time, but I think it was not their intention to in the crisis
situations that they felt justified their actions, to change our form
of government.

It is increasingly clear with each new book and each new leak that
comes out, that Richard Cheney and his now chief of staff David
Addington have had precisely that in mind since at least the early
70s. Not just since 1992, not since 2001, but have believed in
Executive government, single-branch government under an Executive
president - elected or not - with unrestrained powers. They did not
believe in restraint.

When I say this I'm not saying they are traitors. I don't think they
have in mind allegiance to some foreign power or have a desire to help
a foreign power. I believe they have in their own minds a love of this
country and what they think is best for this country - but what they
think is best is directly and consciously at odds with what the
Founders of this country and Constitution thought.

They believe we need a different kind of government now, an Executive
government essentially, rule by decree, which is what we're getting
with signing statements. Signing statements are talked about as line-
item vetoes which is one [way] of describing them which are
unconstitutional in themselves, but in other ways are just saying the
president says "I decide what I enforce. I decide what the law is. I
legislate."

It's [the same] with the military commissions, courts that are under
the entire control of the Executive Branch, essentially of the
president. A concentration of legislative, judicial, and executive
powers in one branch, which is precisely what the Founders meant to
avert, and tried to avert and did avert to the best of their ability
in the Constitution.

Founders Had It Right

Now I'm appealing to that as a crisis right now not just because it is
a break in tradition but because I believe in my heart and from my
experience that on this point the Founders had it right.

It's not just "our way of doing things" - it was a crucial perception
on the corruption of power to anybody including Americans. On
procedures and institutions that might possibly keep that power under
control because the alternative was what we have just seen, wars like
Vietnam, wars like Iraq, wars like the one coming.

That brings me to the second point. This Executive Branch, under
specifically Bush and Cheney, despite opposition from most of the rest
of the branch, even of the cabinet, clearly intends a war against Iran
which even by imperialist standards, standards in other words which
were accepted not only by nearly everyone in the Executive Branch but
most of the leaders in Congress. The interests of the empire, the need
for hegemony, our right to control and our need to control the oil of
the Middle East and many other places. That is consensual in our
establishment. ...

But even by those standards, an attack on Iran is insane. And I say
that quietly, I don't mean it to be heard as rhetoric. Of course it's
not only aggression and a violation of international law, a supreme
international crime, but it is by imperial standards, insane in terms
of the consequences.

Does that make it impossible? No, it obviously doesn't, it doesn't
even make it unlikely.

That is because two things come together that with the acceptance for
various reasons of the Congress - Democrats and Republicans - and the
public and the media, we have freed the White House - the president
and the vice president - from virtually any restraint by Congress,
courts, media, public, whatever.

And on the other hand, the people who have this unrestrained power are
crazy. Not entirely, but they have crazy beliefs.

And the question is what then, what can we do about this? We are
heading towards an insane operation. It is not certain. It is likely.
... I want to try to be realistic myself here, to encourage us to do
what we must do, what is needed to be done with the full recognition
of the reality. Nothing is impossible.

What I'm talking about in the way of a police state, in the way of an
attack on Iran is not certain. Nothing is certain, actually. However,
I think it is probable, more likely than not, that in the next 15, 16
months of this administration we will see an attack on Iran. Probably.
Whatever we do.

And ... we will not succeed in moving Congress probably, and Congress
probably will not stop the president from doing this. And that's where
we're heading. That's a very ugly, ugly prospect.

However, I think it's up to us to work to increase that small perhaps
- anyway not large - possibility and probability to avert this within
the next 15 months, aside from the effort that we have to make for the
rest of our lives.

Restoring the Republic

Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take
a long time. And I think if we don't get started now, it won't be
started under the next administration.

Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting
a further coup in the face of a 9/11, another attack, is for right
now, it can't be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral
courage of which we have seen very little...

We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of
people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position,
lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being
called terrible names, "traitor," "weak on terrorism" - names that
politicians will do anything to avoid being called.

How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large
to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for example? What kinds of pressures, what
kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their
jobs? It isn't just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths
of office.

I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant,
as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State
Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an
oath of office which is the same oath office taken by every member of
Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in
the United States armed services.

And that oath is not to a Commander in Chief, which is not mentioned.
It is not to a fuehrer. It is not even to superior officers. The oath
is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United
States.

Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense
Department without realizing it when I kept my mouth shut when I knew
the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as
they are being lied into war in Iran.

I knew that I had the documents that proved it, and I did not put it
out then. I was not obeying my oath which I eventually came to do.

I've often said that Lt. Ehren Watada - who still faces trial for
refusing to obey orders to deploy to Iraq which he correctly perceives
to be an unconstitutional and aggressive war - is the single officer
in the United States armed services who is taking seriously in
upholding his oath.

The president is clearly violating that oath, of course. Everybody
under him who understands what is going on and there are myriad, are
violating their oaths. And that's the standard that I think we should
be asking of people.

Congressional Courage

On the Democratic side, on the political side, I think we should be
demanding of our Democratic leaders in the House and Senate - and
frankly of the Republicans - that it is not their highest single
absolute priority to be reelected or to maintain a Democratic majority
so that Pelosi can still be Speaker of the House and Reid can be in
the Senate, or to increase that majority.

I'm not going to say that for politicians they should ignore that, or
that they should do something else entirely, or that they should not
worry about that.

Of course that will be and should be a major concern of theirs, but
they're acting like it's their sole concern. Which is business as
usual. "We have a majority, let's not lose it, let's keep it. Let's
keep those chairmanships." Exactly what have those chairmanships done
for us to save the Constitution in the last couple of years?

I am shocked by the Republicans today that I read in the Washington
Post who yesterday threatened a filibuster if we ... get back habeas
corpus. The ruling out of habeas corpus with the help of the Democrats
did not get us back to George the First it got us back to before King
John 700 years ago in terms of counter-revolution.

We need some way, and Ann Wright has one way, of sitting in, in
Conyers office and getting arrested. Ray McGovern has been getting
arrested, pushed out the other day for saying the simple words "swear
him in" when it came to testimony.

I think we've got to somehow get home to them [in Congress] that this
is the time for them to uphold the oath, to preserve the Constitution,
which is worth struggling for in part because it's only with the power
that the Constitution gives Congress responding to the public, only
with that can we protect the world from mad men in power in the White
House who intend an attack on Iran.

And the current generation of American generals and others who realize
that this will be a catastrophe have not shown themselves - they might
be people who in their past lives risked their bodies and their lives
in Vietnam or elsewhere, like [Colin] Powell, and would not risk their
career or their relation with the president to the slightest degree.

That has to change. And it's the example of people like those up here
who somehow brought home to our representatives that they as humans
and as citizens have the power to do likewise and find in themselves
the courage to protect this country and protect the world. Thank you.

Daniel Ellsberg is author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the
Pentagon Papers. http://www.zmag.org/ZNETTOPnoanimation.html