Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Intel Chief Ticks off White House

Oops.

Obama administration officials were flabbergasted Wednesday when Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair testified that an alleged Qaeda operative who tried to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day should have been questioned by a special interrogation unit that doesn’t exist, rather than the FBI.

One senior official described the comments by Blair—the U.S. government’s top intelligence official—as misinformed on multiple levels and all the more damaging because they immediately fueled Republican criticism that the administration mishandled the Christmas Day incident in its treatment of the accused Qaeda operative as a criminal suspect rather than an enemy combatant.

“People are annoyed, angry, and frustrated about this,” said the senior official, who asked not to be identified, speaking about Blair’s testimony. The official added that the White House has ordered Blair to “correct” his remarks. “He’s taking a mulligan on this,” the official said.

[...]

Obama administration officials are fearful that Blair may have ended up hand-delivering their Republican critics an issue by his misinformed remarks. “I didn’t think there was going to be a fall guy for the Detroit incident,” said the senior official. “But Blair may have just talked himself into being one.”

(1) Comments
Posted by Owen at 2010 hrs
Politics + Politics - General

  1. You’re going to see more and more of this sort of stuff, and not only in national security.

    Obama is a ZERO on executive experience and he’s not putting competent people into place.

    Posted by dad29 on January 20, 2010 at 2107 hrs


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