New CIA Director Seen as Likely but not without Question
Some Congressional members have been trying to stifle the efforts to approve the nomination of John Brennan as the new director for the CIA. It’s been a position of protest for those who have voiced opposition to what some perceive as a lack of transparency by the Obama administration in regards to counter-terrorism policies. One of the most ardently opposed tactics of national defense over the last several years is the basis on which targeted killings of foreign enemy combatants is carried out.
The White House stands behind it’s policy of confidentiality for much of the information that is provided by the Justice Department. This large government entity is a critical factor in managing the briefings and reports used by the White House in deploying the use of it’s highly lethal resources such as special force operations and drone attacks against suspects. The secrecy involved with the CIA drone program in particular has received significant backlash over several years in the way that officials categorize “enemy combatants.” These are the persons who stand to be the likely targets of attack by the drone program in the remote villages of countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.
The administration has deemed male persons between the ages of 16-50 who show a tendency of being involved or interacting with highly suspected terrorist operatives as eligible by definition as enemy combatants. Reports of innocent civilian deaths during the several years of the aggressive CIA drone campaign certainly was known to provoke outcry by local citizens and the government of those countries who like Harmid Karzai, criticized the White House’s program. Along with the accusations of the intelligence for what actual role many of these victims of drone assaults may actually have played as accomplices of active terrorists groups has resulted in contradictory reports over the number of innocent people killed.
It’s unquestionable that the number of potentially harmful militants who have been eliminated is a major success in the eyes of most members in government. The accountability though of how the information is compiled and the credibility of pursuing specific military missions and their targets is what has been in question by some Republicans and Democrats. These dissenters demand that more evidenced based reports be made available to the Senate and House Intelligence Committees over the Justice Department’s discretion in handling such matters of national security.
It is to be seen how much impact those members of the intelligence committees who seek less confidentiality of defense information will be in deterring the approval of John Brennan’s nomination. Should a few members from the Intelligence Committees successfully prevent his appointment, then a serious delay of an acting CIA director could ensue upon having to await future votes on a subsequent Obama nomination. Some of Brennan’s critics hold him to have been partly to blame in the abuses of prison detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay as he was then active with providing persuasive intelligence for certain military operations during the Bush Administration.
He was first selected by Obama for the CIA director post in 2008 but rescinded his nomination on the basis of what he described in his letter to Obama as misconstrued accusations against him by his critics in Washington. A vote nonetheless for his nomination is likely to come as early as next week with a favorable likelihood that he shall receive the number of votes needed to secure his position.