http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/11-8
Published on Friday, January 11, 2013 by Common Dreams
The Grilling that John Brennan Deserves
by Ray McGovern
As Washington's pundit class sees it, Defense Secretary-designee
Chuck Hagel deserves a tough grilling over his hesitancy to go to war
with Iran and his controversial detection of a pro-Israel lobby
operating in the U.S. capital, but prospective CIA Director John
Brennan should get only a few polite queries about his role helping
to create and sustain Dick Cheney's "dark side."
During the upcoming confirmation hearings of these two nominees for
President Barack Obama's national security team, we all may get a
revealing look into the upside-down world of Washington's moral and
geopolitical priorities, where too much skepticism about rushing to
war is disqualifying and complicity in war crimes is okay, maybe even
expected.
Still, there is at least a hope that Brennan's confirmation hearing
might provide an opening for the Senate Intelligence Committee to
force out the secret legal justifications and the operational
procedures for the lethal drone program that has expanded under
Obama, including successfully targeting for death U.S. citizen and
al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.
Over the past few years, senior administration officials have praised
the rigorous standards applied to these life-or-death decisions by
Brennan and his counterterrorism team, but have refused to release
the constitutional rationales for the President exerting these
extraordinary powers or to explain exactly the methodology of
selecting targets.
Presumably, some committee member will ask Brennan about such
nitpicky things as constitutional due process and the Bill of Rights
even if the panel will have to scurry into a classified session to
hear the answers. But there is still a chance that Brennan or one of
the senators will blurt something out, shedding light on one of the
darkest corners of the ongoing war against al-Qaeda and other Islamic
militants.
Yet, what hits closest to home for many of my Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) colleagues and me is Brennan's
earlier role, under President George W. Bush and CIA Director George
Tenet, in corrupting the CIA's analysis directorate into fabricating
fraudulent intelligence to "justify" war on Iraq. From the
perspective of CIA analysts who worked by a very different ethos,
such treachery is truly unacceptable.
Brennan, as Tenet's chief of staff and then the CIA's Deputy
Executive Director, had a front-row seat for all this. Former CIA
colleagues who served with Brennan before and during the war with
Iraq assert that there is absolutely no possibility that Brennan
could have been unaware of the deliberate corruption of intelligence
analysis.
Brennan's confirmation hearing, with the nominee under oath, might be
the best opportunity to hear his explanation of what he did when he
faced two conflicting allegiances - his career advancement on one
side and his duty to the nation as an intelligence officer on the
other.
Phony Intelligence
After a five-year investigation by the Senate Intelligence Committee,
the pre-Iraq-war "intelligence" was described by committee chair Jay
Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, as "uncorroborated, contradicted, or
even non-existent."
Hagel, then a senator from Nebraska and a member of the committee,
was one of two Republicans voting to approve the Senate report,
making it bipartisan and presumably annoying some of his more
partisan brethren who resisted admitting to the lies that President
George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney used to take the
country to war.
Hagel also has co-chaired Obama's Intelligence Advisory Board, giving
him even more insights into the challenges of rebuilding a
professional intelligence service, one that puts a commitment to
objective analysis over pleasing the boss. If only Brennan could show
such a commitment.
A principal objection to Brennan's return to the CIA is that he has
rarely displayed any rigorous discipline in his approach to the
truth. One of his most famous deviations from reality was his
gilding-the-lily presentation of Seal Team 6's killing of al-Qaeda
leader Osama bin Laden on May 1, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Just hours after Osama bin Laden was killed, Brennan gave the press
this rendition of what had happened and how bin Laden had died: "He
was engaged in a firefight with those that entered the area of the
house he was in. Just thinking about that from a visual
perspective: here is bin Laden living in this million-dollar-plus
compound in an area that is far removed from the front hiding
behind women who were put in front of him as a shield. I think it
really just speaks to just, to how false his narrative has been over
the years."
Even giving Brennan the benefit of the doubt about the "fog of war"
and such, his spin suggested not so much a lack of still-fuzzy
details but an assembling of fake details, his own false narrative if
you will. Brennan's account was more agit-prop than an attempt to
tell the story straight.
It was not enough to let the facts speak for themselves - Americans
were surely not going to be sympathetic to the man they blame for the
9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 innocent people - but Brennan
still chose to further belittle bin Laden as a coward hiding behind
one of his wives while seeking to save himself.
Later, White House spokesman Jay Carney clarified some of Brennan's
inaccuracies. Bin Laden was not armed; he did not use one of his
wives as a shield; and there was no firefight to speak of, only an
initial exchange of gunfire between the U.S. commandos and one of bin
Laden's couriers in an adjacent building.
There were other details that came out subsequently, including that
bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter was in the room and watched as he
was shot and killed, according to the London Guardian. Pakistani
officials said bin Laden's daughter had been hit in the ankle moments
before the American assault team reached the room where they found
and killed her father, and she then passed out.
Given the recent sorry history of CIA directors participating in what
amount to propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed as much at
the American people as any foreign enemy, a nominee for CIA director
should not have a record of making stuff up or misleading the public.
Ducking Hard Truth
Another Brennan example of ducking hard truths was his claim in June
2011 that during the previous year, "there has not been a single
collateral death" from CIA drone strikes in Pakistan. Far more
credible reporting shows that there have been hundreds of people
killed simply for being in the vicinity of an al-Qaeda or Taliban
suspect.
Yet, some administration officials are so touchy on this point that
they suggest that dissenters might be terrorist sympathizers. On Feb.
5, 2012, the New York Times' Scott Shane reported the following quote
from an anonymous "senior American counterterrorism official":
"One must wonder why an effort that has so carefully gone after
terrorists has been subjected to so much misinformation. Let's be
under no illusions - there are a number of elements who would like
nothing more than to malign these efforts and help Al Qaeda succeed."
So, raising tough questions means you're with the terrorists.
Brennan had similar problems with forthrightness when he was assigned
to explain to a press conference on Jan. 8, 2010, how the infamous
"underwear bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab almost downed an
airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
Clearly, Brennan did not expect to be asked a real question, like
what motivates an upper-class Muslim youth from Nigeria to do such a
thing, but a tenacious 89-year-old Helen Thomas was still in the
White House press corps and was one of the very few journalists (as
distinct from the stenographers) willing to pose such questions.
Thomas asked why Abdulmuttalab did what he did, a question of human
motivation that is rarely part of the Washington conversation.
Thomas: "And what is the motivation? We never hear what you find out on why."
Brennan: "Al Qaeda is an organization that is dedicated to murder and
wanton slaughter of innocents. They attract individuals like Mr.
Abdulmuttalab and use them for these types of attacks. He was
motivated by a sense of religious sort of drive. Unfortunately, al
Qaeda has perverted Islam, and has corrupted the concept of Islam, so
that he's (sic) able to attract these individuals. But al Qaeda has
the agenda of destruction and death."
Thomas: "And you're saying it's because of religion?"
Brennan: "I'm saying it's because of an al Qaeda organization that
used the banner of religion in a very perverse and corrupt way."
Thomas: "Why?"
Brennan: "I think this is a - long issue, but al Qaeda is just
determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland."
Thomas: "But you haven't explained why."
The why would be the sort of question you might wish a CIA director
would want answered - and answered honestly - since enemy motivation
is a crucial element in winning a war or, more importantly, avoiding
one.
Just Boilerplate
But all the American public gets is boilerplate about how al-Qaeda
evildoers are perverting a religion and exploiting impressionable
young men. Or, as Brennan suggests, some "militants" are just
hard-wired for things like knocking down aircraft over Detroit with
themselves on board.
There is almost no discussion about why so many people in the Muslim
world object to U.S. policies so strongly that they are inclined to
resist violently and even resort to suicide attacks. Perhaps, the
U.S. and Western proclivity toward intervening in their affairs over
many decades - propping up corrupt dictators and favoring Israel over
the Palestinians - has left some Muslims looking for any way to
strike back, even self-destructive acts of terror.
Maybe today, one of the reasons for the number of "militants" willing
to attack Americans might have something to do with drones buzzing
over Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other locales - and
with distant "pilots" getting clearance from Brennan and his
associates to push some button and obliterate some unsuspecting
target.
Despite the American people's legitimate right to know what's being
done in their name, Brennan gets thin-skinned when criticized or
asked tough questions. Four years ago, when President Obama was first
considering Brennan to head the CIA, Brennan faced questions about
what he did for the Bush/Cheney "dark side" and promptly withdrew his
name. In a bitter letter, he blamed "strong criticism in some
quarters, prompted by [his] previous service with the" CIA.
Yet, Brennan's 25-year career at the CIA would seem to be fair game
in evaluating whether he should run the place. His former managers in
CIA's analysis directorate tell me he was a bust as an analyst.
Instead, like former CIA Director (and more recently Defense
Secretary) Robert Gates, Brennan's career zoomed upwards after he
caught the attention of key White House officials - in Brennan's
case, George Tenet who held the top intelligence advisory job under
President Bill Clinton before he was made CIA deputy director and
then director.
Of course, the tradeoff for that kind of advancement often is your
integrity, both as an intelligence officer and as a public servant.
Indeed, it's hard to conceive how someone could have flourished in
the corrupt world of U.S. intelligence, especially since its descent
into the post-9/11 "dark side," without selling out one's
professionalism and morality.
Those who stood their ground and demonstrated integrity found
themselves out on the street or marginalized as "soft on terror" - or
maybe they were considered suspiciously finicky when it came to
"quaint and obsolete" notions like the Constitution, the Bill of
Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the rule of law.
But don't worry. Endorsing the nomination of Brennan on Wednesday,
the editors of the Washington Post tell us that, although "the
administration's current strategy of countering al-Qaeda in Pakistan,
Yemen, and Somalia with drone strikes is unsustainable the strikes
are certainly legal under U.S. and international law [even though
they] are problematic, given the backlash they have caused in
Pakistan."
Still, it might be nice if the American people could see the secret
legal justifications underpinning Brennan's last four years as keeper
of the "kill lists."
A version of this article first appeared on Consortium News
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