After showing the footage from the documentary Breaking the Silence, former CIA analyst and Iraq intelligence expert Raymond McGovern asked the audience, "How many were aware that Rice and Powell said this?"

Approximately 10 people raised their hands.

"Why didn't the reporters find this?" he said. "Why didn't Americans know?"

McGovern, along with FBI agent Coleen Rowley, addressed national-defense issues during a free public lecture concerning the war Iraq and the Patriot Act.

McGovern contended that the director of the CIA and the chief U.S. weapons inspector have offered very different explanations on why no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have been found.

"Why were we reluctant to say there were no weapons of mass destruction?" he said. "We couldn't believe our own president was lying to us through his teeth."

He believes that the government cynically exploited Americans' trauma over 9/11 to persuade them it was necessary to attack Iraq.

"It's sad to say we cannot give him the benefit of the doubt," he said.

Iowa native Rowley, now an FBI special agent in Minneapolis, is the author of a highly publicized May 2002 memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller. She felt the FBI had made mistakes in the months leading up to 9/11. Later that year, Time called her the "public conscience" of the FBI in an article naming her as one of the three "People of the Year," along with Sherron Watkins and Cynthia Cooper.

"We have two views on the Patriot Act," Rowley said. "One is Orwell's Big Brother saying that we're under a microscope, and the other is 'Trust us, we're the government.' "

Clarifying that most have not even read the entire Patriot Act, which contains 160 different laws, she cited a few of the main laws Americans should pay attention to, including the court order for third-party records, the "sneak and peek warrant," and domestic terrorism.

"The Patriot Act isn't a problem. It's the way it's enforced - the mentality and the fear factor," she said. "It stifles debate and stops talk about hard issues while making us more susceptible to making mistakes."

The UI Lecture Committee said bringing Rowley and McGovern to the university exposed students to new ideas.

"Offering an intellectual examination of the most important current events - war, civil liberties, and intelligence - is simply not available in the mainstream press but is an opportunity the University Lecture Committee provides the university community," said UI sophomore Chad Aldeman, the group's financial director. "It is the best investment we can possibly make of student fees to give back to the students."