Critics of President Clinton blame his administration for the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001. In the face of multiple terror strikes, Clinton steadfastly maintained that the problem of terrorism was best handled by law-enforcement agencies. Moreover, during Clinton’s tenure a firewall had been constructed between the CIA and FBI, restricting the flow of information between them and thereby depriving both agencies of the ability to “connect the dots” and prevent 9/11. Thousands of Americans died as a result.
Be that as it may, everyone agrees that President Bush energetically constructed a vast web of counter-terrorism tools. Like it or not, Bush’s approach has been surprisingly successful, thwarting subsequent terror attacks on American soil that had been universally predicted. Now, President-elect Obama’s incoming administration is promising to disband many of the anti-terror devices employed since 9/11. Only time will tell if Obama’s approach to the War On Terror will make America more vulnerable to terror attacks.
Two articles follow that press on this point. The first is by San Francisco Chronicle writer Debra Saunders. “From Jack Bauer to Leon Panetta” offers a well-balanced assessment of harsh interrogation techniques. The second piece is Bill O-Reilly’s “Obama’s Big Gamble,” exposing Panetta’s plans to end many of the CIA’s anti-terrorism measures and thereby open Obama to severe criticism should America suffer another terror strike as a result. Average Americans will pay the price if the next administration drops the ball on national defense.
“From Jack Bauer To Leon Panetta,” by Debra Saunders
Sunday’s New York Times ran two columns that advocated for investigations into America’s use of coercive interrogation techniques – known to editorial writers as “torture” – of enemy combatants, as well as one that opposed a show trial. Also Sunday, television’s “24″ uber-agent Jack Bauer stood before a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating intelligence abuses and gave a bombastic Senate inquisitor what-for: “Please do not sit there with that smug look on your face and expect me to regret the decisions that I have made, because, sir, the truth is, I don’t.”
Asked if he had tortured a suspect, the Kiefer Sutherland character Bauer answered, “According to the Geneva Convention, yes I did.” Actually, according to any standard, Bauer tortured people. He shot and killed suspects, choked his brother and shot a suspect’s wife in the leg.
The interrogation methods cited in the New York Times exist in a different universe. Yes, the techniques, which some Bush administration critics want to prosecute, were harsh. But there is strong reason to not call them torture. Grabbing, shaking, open-hand slapping, sleep deprivation, exposure to cold, and even the simulated-drowning technique called waterboarding, do not scar. They’re not the sort of brutal punishment meted out by Saddam Hussein. To the contrary, CIA agents have subjected themselves to waterboarding. “It wasn’t viewed as ipso facto torture,” a former CIA official told me, “because we don’t torture our own people.”
The harshest methods were not used routinely. The military never authorized harsh techniques, while the CIA used waterboarding, according to CIA Director Michael Hayden and news reports, not widely, but on three high-profile detainees.
Former CIA operative John Kiriakou told ABC’s Brian Ross that the waterboarding of Abu Zubaydah “disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.” That’s a lot of lives. Operatives didn’t act on impulse, a la Jack Bauer. Kiriakou explained that agents had to ask the deputy director for operations before using any coercive technique.
Democrats in Congress – and a handful of Republicans – have had a fun time trashing the Bush administration for authorizing waterboarding. Senators tried to strong arm now Attorney General Michael Mukasey to classify waterboarding as torture during his confirmation hearings, and failed – perhaps because, at the time, despite the rhetoric, Congress itself had failed to ban the practice.
President-elect Barack Obama has said that waterboarding is torture and hence verboten in Obamaland.
But do Democrats really want to ban the potential to use waterboarding and other enhanced interrogation techniques? Already news outlets are reporting on the downside to barring these techniques.
The Washington Post ran a story on the “perilous balancing act to fulfill his pledge to make a clean break with the detention and interrogation policies of the Bush administration while still effectively ensuring the nation’s security.”
Newsweek reported on a Senate vote last year to require that the CIA use only interrogation methods from the Army Field Manual: “These are extremely restrictive: strictly speaking, the interrogator cannot ever threaten bodily harm or even put a prisoner on cold rations until he talks. Bush vetoed this measure, not unwisely. As president, Obama may want to preserve some flexibility. (Suppose, for instance, that after a big attack the CIA captured the leader who planned it: There would be enormous pressure to make the terrorist divulge what attack is coming next.)”
Suppose? No need. The CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
Ah, but that was under Bush. With President Barack Obama in the White House, the lexicon will change, from “torture” to “flexibility” to interrogate in the interests of national security.
“Obama’s Big Gamble,” by Bill O’Reilly
Who knew Leon Panetta was really James Bond? The 70-year-old former Congressman is considered a very nice guy in the political world, a world that is anything but nice. But now Mr. Panetta is being tapped by President-elect Obama to be a tough guy spy, the head of the CIA.
The choice is perplexing. Mr. Panetta is very smart but has absolutely no intel experience unless you count his days as Bill Clinton’s Chief of Staff. Some old hands inside the CIA are reportedly aghast at the choice. Former CIA guy Michael Scheuer, who headed up the agency’s Bin Laden unit, put it succinctly: “I think they pulled his name out of a hat.”
Besides his lack of experience, Panetta opposes many of the CIA’s anti-terror measures. He’s against any kind of coerced interrogation, wants the FISA overseas wiretap law repealed and would completely disband the rendition program whereby the CIA sends captured terror suspects to be held and interrogated in other countries.
Without those tools, which former CIA Chief George Tenet and others say have been very effective in uncovering terror plots, the agency’s ability to disrupt potential attacks would be gravely damaged. In fact, it was just last February when 68 senators, some of them Democrats, voted the FISA wiretap strategy into law. For the record, Barack Obama declined to vote on the issue.
But now Obama can’t sit these things out. He must decide how to wage the war on terror, and by selecting Panetta as his point man, he’s taking a huge gamble. If the United States is attacked again by terrorists, Obama’s soft intelligence-gathering approach will also come under attack. Simply put: a successful terror mission could bring President Obama down.
So why is Obama putting himself in this position? Well, the media has convinced many people that the Bush administration degenerated into a bunch of criminal torturers-people who persecuted innocent Muslims worldwide. Now, the committed left-wing media are demanding Obama reject any experienced intelligence people who have supported President Bush’s terror initiatives. That’s why Leon Panetta was chosen-to appease the left wing zealots.
It seems to me that common sense, not ideology, is vital in preventing terrorists from killing us. Could Panetta learn on the job to run the CIA? Certainly. Should he be in charge when we are fighting two wars and terrorist bombs are going off all over the world? No way.
As for tapping calls to suspected terrorists overseas, come on. Judges still have to see the data after the fact and federal law still applies to any abuse. A private detective named Anthony Pellicano just got a harsh prison sentence for violating the wiretap law.
It’s the same thing with coerced interrogation. The president should have the power to order it when lives are in imminent danger from a terror threat. However, Leon Panetta recently told a newspaper that all interrogations should abide by the Army Field Manual which prohibits making any captured person “uncomfortable.”
Well, that kind of restriction should make you uncomfortable. Because in the war on terror, a lack of quick intelligence
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Best Of the Web, War on Terror