NY Times, January 8, 2009
Obama Is Reported Set to Revise Counterterrorism Efforts
By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama is preparing to scrap the way
President Bush oversaw domestic security in the White House and name a
former Central Intelligence Agency official to coordinate
counterterrorism, people close to the transition said Wednesday.
The plan being discussed would eliminate the independent homeland
security adviser’s office and assign those duties to the National
Security Council to streamline sometimes overlapping functions. A deputy
national security adviser would be charged with overseeing the effort to
guard against terrorism and to respond to natural disasters.
Democrats close to the transition said Mr. Obama’s choice for that job
was John O. Brennan, a longtime C.I.A. veteran who was the front-runner
to head the spy agency until withdrawing in November amid criticism of
his views on interrogation and detention policies. His appointment would
not require Senate confirmation.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/us/politics/08council.html
---
Brennan out of running for top intelligence post
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
WASHINGTON: John Brennan, President-elect Barack Obama's top adviser on
intelligence, took his name out of the running Tuesday for any
intelligence position in the new administration.
Brennan wrote in a Nov. 25 letter to Obama that he did not want to be a
distraction. His potential appointment as CIA director has raised a
firestorm in liberal blogs that associate him with the Bush
administration's interrogation, detention and rendition policies.
Brennan, a 25-year CIA veteran, helped establish the National
Counterterrorism Center and was its first director in 2004. He has
privately and publicly said that he opposed waterboarding and questioned
other interrogation methods that many in the CIA feared could be later
deemed illegal.
"It has been immaterial to the critics that I have been a strong
opponent of many of the policies of the Bush administration such as the
pre-emptive war in Iraq and coercive interrogation tactics, to include
waterboarding," he wrote. "It is with profound regret that I
respectfully ask that my name be withdrawn from consideration for a
position within the intelligence community. The challenges ahead of our
nation are too daunting, and the role of the CIA too critical, for there
to be any distraction from the vital work that lays ahead," Brennan wrote.
An Obama adviser said Brennan made the decision to withdraw on his own
and that he will remain heavily involved in the transition. The adviser
is not authorized to discuss internal deliberations so asked not to be
named.
Obama's spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said Obama accepted Brennan's
decision and "is grateful for John's continuing assistance as a valuable
member of our transition team."
However, a group of about 200 psychologists published an open letter to
Obama on Nov. 22 opposing Brennan's leadership of the CIA. They cited
several media interviews in which they deemed Brennan insufficiently
opposed to rendition and harsh interrogation to make a clean break with
the Bush administration's policies.
They noted that he told the National Journal in March that he would
favor "continuity" in intelligence policies in the early days of the
Obama administration.
"I would argue for continuity in those early stages. You don't want to
whipsaw the (intelligence) community," Brennan said. "I'm hoping there
will be a number of professionals coming in who have an understanding of
the evolution of the capabilities in the community over the past six
years, because there is a method to how things have changed and
adapted," he said.
In a 2005 interview on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer," Brennan defended
rendition as "an absolutely vital tool." In 2007 on CBS News, he said
the CIA's harsh interrogation program, which included waterboarding on
at least three prisoners, produced "life saving" intelligence.
Waterboarding is a form of simulated drowning.
Brennan has spoken out publicly against waterboarding.
"The fact that I was not involved in the decisionmaking process for any
of these controversial policies and actions has been ignored," he wrote
in a letter obtained by The Associated Press. "Indeed, my criticism of
these policies within government circles was the reason why I was twice
considered for more senior-level positions in the current administration
only to be rebuffed by the White House."
One former intelligence official said Bush in 2005 rejected nominating
Brennan, then interim National Counterterrorism Center director, as the
actual director.
"The politicos at the White House said no because they thought he was
too outspoken in his criticism of the administration and not
sufficiently on board with their program," he told AP.
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell in 2007 had Brennan on a
short list to become his principal deputy director, the second-highest
position at the organization. The White House again rejected him,
intelligence officials said.
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