blind_html Fwd: Security Before Politics
- From: Nimer Jaber <nimerjaber1@xxxxxxxxx>
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- Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:28:45 -0600
Nimer M. Jaber
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Security Before Politics
Date: Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:18:19 -0000
From: Ray T. Mahorney <coffee-craver@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Reply-To: Blind-chit-chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To: <blind-chit-chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403339.html
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/24/AR2009042403339.html>
Security Before Politics
By Porter J. Goss
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Since leaving my post as CIA director almost three years ago, I have
remained largely silent on
the public stage. I am speaking out now because I feel our
government has crossed the red line between properly protecting our
national security and trying
to gain partisan political advantage. We can't have a
secret intelligence service if we keep giving away all the secrets.
Americans have to decide
now.
A disturbing epidemic of amnesia seems to be plaguing my former
colleagues on Capitol Hill.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, members of the committees
charged with overseeing our nation's intelligence services had no higher
priority than stopping
al-Qaeda. In the fall of 2002, while I was chairman of
the House intelligence committee, senior members of Congress were
briefed on the CIA's "
High Value Terrorist Program
," including the development of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and
what those techniques
were. This was not a one-time briefing but an ongoing subject
with lots of back and forth between those members and the briefers.
Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not
understood that the techniques on
which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or
that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned.
It must be hard for most
Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress
can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind
Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In
that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political
expedience.
Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:
-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate
intelligence committees,
known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was
holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.
-- We understood what the CIA was doing.
-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.
-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.
-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from
Congress to carry out its
mission against al-Qaeda.
I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues. They did not vote
to stop authorizing CIA
funding. And for those who now reveal filed "memorandums
for the record" suggesting concern, real concern should have been
expressed immediately -- to
the committee chairs, the briefers, the House speaker or
minority leader, the CIA director or the president's national security
adviser -- and not
quietly filed away in case the day came when the political winds
shifted. And shifted they have.
Circuses are not new in Washington, and I can see preparations being
made for tents from the
Capitol straight down Pennsylvania Avenue. The CIA has been
pulled into the center ring before. The result this time will be the
same: a hollowed-out
service of diminished capabilities. After Sept. 11, the general
outcry was, "Why don't we have better overseas capabilities?" I fear
that in the years to come
this refrain will be heard again: once a threat -- or God
forbid, another successful attack -- captures our attention and sends
the pendulum swinging
back. There is only one person who can shut down this dangerous
show: President Obama.
Unfortunately, much of the damage to our capabilities has already been
done. It is certainly not
trust that is fostered when intelligence officers are told
one day "I have your back" only to learn a day later that a knife is
being held to it. After the
events of this week, morale at the CIA has been shaken
to its foundation.
We must not forget: Our intelligence allies overseas view our inability
to maintain secrecy as a
reason to question our worthiness as a partner. These allies
have been vital in almost every capture of a terrorist.
The suggestion that we are safer now because information about
interrogation techniques is in
the public domain conjures up images of unicorns and fairy
dust. We have given our enemy invaluable information about the rules by
which we operate. The
terrorists captured by the CIA perfected the act of beheading
innocents using dull knives. Khalid Sheik Mohammed boasted of the tactic
of placing explosives
high enough in a building to ensure that innocents trapped
above would die if they tried to escape through windows. There is simply
no comparison between
our professionalism and their brutality.
Our enemies do not subscribe to the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury.
"Name, rank and serial
number" does not apply to non-state actors but is, regrettably,
the only question this administration wants us to ask. Instead of taking
risks, our intelligence
officers will soon resort to wordsmithing cables to headquarters
while opportunities to neutralize brutal radicals are lost.
The days of fortress America are gone. We are the world's superpower. We
can sit on our hands or
we can become engaged to improve global human conditions.
The bottom line is that we cannot succeed unless we have good
intelligence. Trading security for
partisan political popularity will ensure that our secrets
are not secret and that our intelligence is destined to fail us.
The writer, a Republican, was director of the CIA from September 2004 to
May 2006 and was
chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence
from 1997 to 2004.
Ray T. Mahorney
WA4WGA
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