Senate Committee Approves Brennan for C.I.A. Director
Published: New York Times March 5, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 12 to 3 to confirm
John O. Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency on
Tuesday, hours after the White House agreed to provide more information
on the legal basis for targeted killings of Americans believed to pose a
terrorist threat.
The vote, in a closed committee meeting, clears the way for Mr. Brennan,
a 25-year C.I.A. veteran who has been President Obama’s top
counterterrorism adviser, to be confirmed by the full Senate later this
week.
In his White House job, Mr. Brennan, 57, has overseen the expansion of
targeted killing in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. While he is widely
expected to win confirmation, senators of both parties have used his
nomination to try to pressure the White House into disclosing
information it has previously declined to give to Congress.
They have had some success. On Tuesday morning, the committee’s
Democratic chairwoman, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, said the
White House had agreed to give the committee access to all Justice
Department legal opinions on the targeted killing of Americans. Two such
opinions were briefly shared with senators at the time of Mr. Brennan’s
confirmation hearing last month; it is unclear how many more memos will
now be shared.
Republicans have pressed for more details on the administration’s
response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in September, which
killed the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other
Americans. The committee has been given additional Benghazi material as
well, though not enough to satisfy some Republicans.
In addition, a staff member for each senator on the Inteligence
Committee will now be permitted for the first time to see the Justice
Department memos, which govern the use of drones and other weapons to
kill American citizens overseas who have been identified as dangerous
terrorists. Previously, only senators themselves were permitted to read
the memos, a restriction that Ms. Feinstein had strongly protested,
staff members said.
“I have reached an agreement with the White House to provide the
committee access to all O.L.C. opinions related to the targeted killing
of Americans in a way that allows members to fulfill their oversight
responsibilities,” Ms. Feinstein said, referring to the Justice
Department’s Office of Legal Counsel. “I am pleased the administration
has made this information available. It is important for the committee
to do its work and will pave the way for the confirmation of John
Brennan to be C.I.A. director.”
Congressional officials said the administration had also agreed to
provide public, unclassified information about its position on when
people suspected of terrorism can be killed legally on American soil.
Several members of Congress, including Senator Rand Paul, Republican of
Kentucky, have raised the question, but neither Mr. Brennan nor Mr.
Obama has given a clear answer in public.
Three senators who had demanded all of the memos on killing Americans —
Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, both Democrats, and
Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican — said they were pleased with the
agreement and would support Mr. Brennan’s confirmation.
“We believe that this sets an important precedent for applying our
American system of checks and balances to the challenges of 21st-century
warfare,” the three senators said in a statement.
They said the next step should be “to bring the American people into
this debate and for Congress to consider ways to ensure that the
president’s sweeping authorities are subject to appropriate limitations,
oversight and safeguards.”
Only one American, the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who had joined
the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, has been deliberately killed in a strike,
in September 2011. At least three other Americans killed in strikes in
Yemen were not the intended targets, officials have said.
While Ms. Feinstein has sought legal opinions governing strikes
targeting non-Americans, they are still being withheld by the
administration, which views them as confidential legal advice to the
president. As a result, the detailed legal rules for a vast majority of
drone strikes, including so-called signature strikes aimed at suspected
militants whose identities are unknown, remain secret.
On Monday, Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, said he hoped the
Senate would vote on Mr. Brennan’s nomination this week, but he
complained that Republicans were insisting on a 60-vote majority to
confirm him.
“At a time when America faces so many threats abroad, it is crucial that
we have a talented and dedicated individual like John Brennan leading
our nation’s most prominent intelligence agency,” Mr. Reid said. “Yet,
Republicans again and again interject politics into the confirmation
process.”
Christopher E. Anders, the senior legislative counsel at the American
Civil Liberties Union, called the promised disclosures “an important
first baby step towards restoring the checks and balances between
Congress and the president,” but he said it was not enough.
“Amazingly, the Obama administration continues to hide at least some of
its legal opinions, even from the intelligence committees,” Mr. Anders
said. He said that all members of Congress should have access to the
memos on targeted killings, and that redacted copies should be made
public.
Albanian wahabis are once again inciting violence by pushing under
age teens to go protest ini front of the Government after their Friday
prayers at a local mosque.
The
company was formed on the 6th January 1942 from volunteers at RAF
Habbanyia in Iraq to safe guard against Axis infiltration through the
Caucuses, the area being mostly impassable terrain the enemy would need
to rely on existing roads, tunnels and railways. The [AOC] Air Officer
Commanding Iraq, Air vice Marshal Hugh De Crespigny reasoned that a
parachute company consisting of trusted indigenous servicemen, could
destroy these access points and slow German advance, after the operation
they would be able to discard their uniforms and blend in with the
local population evading capture.
