Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, has seen the CIA from the inside.

Last night, in a speech in front of more than 200, McGovern shared how presidential administrations "cooked intelligence" to fit their agendas.

He reflected on his own experience as a CIA analyst of 27 years, including during the Vietnam era and related it to the current situation in Iraq.

McGovern spoke of the way President George W. Bush's administration handled Iraq.

"The decision to attack Iraq was made January 30, 2001," McGovern said. "In a meeting with national security officials, Bush's message wasn't about if or whether we should get Saddam, it was when and where."

McGovern said the only thing left for Bush to do before attacking Iraq was to convince Congress to go to war. He said Bush convinced Congress with a forged document saying Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa.

McGovern also discussed the number of U.S. troops in Iraq. He said U.S. Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki needed 400,000 troops, but only received a fraction of that.

"If these guys get four more years, you'll see 500,000 troops in Iraq," McGovern said. "We're not going to get 500,000 troops without a draft."

McGovern mentioned the death toll in Iraq. While about 1,000 American soldiers have died, McGovern said the most conservative Iraqi civilian death toll was 13,000, according to www.iraqbodycount.net -- which he said uses two reliable sources -- and a more accurate guess would be 37,000, from officials inside Iraq.

"I'm heartbroken that kids [college students'] age, my age, went to join the Army and now they're flags on a mantelpiece for no reason," Brian Morrison (senior-film and video production) said following McGovern's speech.

McGovern said the reason the Iraqi death toll is unknown is because the media is not covering it.

"There's no free press anymore," McGovern said. "Talk about fascism, when corporations and the government get together and have control over the press, you get pretty damn close."

He began his speech with the original role of the CIA. He explained that the non-partisan agency held one agent accountable for gathering intelligence on a specific subject.

"It was an agency without an agenda," McGovern said. "We could tell it like it is. We got to the truth as close as possible."

He continued by speaking about former President Lyndon B. Johnson waging war in Vietnam. McGovern said one of his fellow agents, Sam Adams, researched Vietnam's army size and uncovered about 500,000 fighting against the U.S. Army.

McGovern said the Army, in a secret memo, told Adams the press would have a field day with those numbers. However, Army generals told Adams to report the number of people in the Vietnamese army at about 200,000.

McGovern said both he and Adams deeply regretted not giving that memo to the press because many lives, both American and Vietnamese, could have been saved.

Despite battling a cold, McGovern talked for more than two hours, and fielded many questions from the audience.

"He gave a lot of insight that the average citizen does not know and should know," Kristen Cortez (junior-biobehavioral science) said. "I understand how you could see his talk to be politically fueled, but he's getting out the truth."