USS Liberty

Statement of Ambassador Edward Peck

Former Chief of Mission in Iraq and Deputy Director of
Ronald Reagan’s White House Task Force on Terrorism

US Navy Memorial
June 8, 2007

The Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest decoration for bravery that our nation can bestow, was awarded to the Commanding Officer of the USS Liberty, Captain William McGonagle.

Three significant aspects of the fully deserved recognition of his heroic actions are worthy of note. Each of them constitutes additional evidence and compelling indictments of the nature and extent of the cover-up, the shameful efforts to protect relations with a foreign country at the expense of American military personnel.

First, the Congressional Medal of Honor is always presented at the White House by the President. Captain McGonagle received his at the Washington Navy Yard, presented by the Secretary of the Navy. The Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Moorer, referred to the hastily arranged ceremony as a ‘back-handed slap’. It is similar in effect to handing it to him in a paper bag in some back alley.

Second, this was the first time in history the Congressional Medal was awarded for action in the face of an enemy with which the United States was not at war. In fact, Israel, the nation that launched and sustained a two-hour air and sea attack on a US Navy ship was considered a friend.

Third, the US has just gone through a long, painful, costly and embarrassing effort to unravel the cover-up of the death by friendly fire of Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. American servicemen will be punished for attempting to conceal the circumstances of the accidental killing of a single American soldier by his own comrades. It is totally unacceptable that even though Israeli servicemen would not receive punishment for carrying out their orders, orders that resulted in the killing and wounding of more than 200 of the Liberty’s crew, our government has steadfastly refused to permit the survivors of the heaviest attack on a Navy ship since WWII to tell properly constituted official investigators what happened on that fateful day.

This is obsequious, unctuous subservience to the peripheral interests of a foreign nation at the cost of the lives and morale of our own service members and their families. It should no longer be condoned.