The Lecture Panetta Should Deliver to President Obama

An article appeared in the 20 May 2011 edition of the Washington Post titled, “Panetta Warns CIA Workers against Leaks on bin Laden.” Someone should advise Mr. Panetta his officers know how to keep secrets—they do so every day of their service and afterward, through the rest of their lives. Mr. Panetta might best direct his lecture to President Obama and his national security advisors.

It was President Obama and his White House security staffers who made public a great deal of information on the SEAL-conducted raid on bin Laden's villa that should have remained secret. It is clear they all did so in the interest of political gain; to give President Obama and his administration a “bump up” in his sagging polls. Clearly, that information was classified; if not, it should have been classified, as the revealed material dealt directly with sources and methods.

Did they have to reveal the existence of the “stealth” surveillance drone? Did they have to reveal the existence of the CIA safe house in proximity to bin Laden’s villa? Did they have to reveal the specifics of the intelligence collected e.g., computer hard drives, diaries, thumb drives and the like? Once again, we perceive the much higher value our leaders place on political gain vice national security

President Obama - A Champion to the Arab People

President Obama is going to ‘bestow upon the new Egyptian “government” something in excess of one billion of our taxpayer dollars. Does President Obama or anyone else in the executive branch have any idea as to who will benefit from this gift? All Egyptian political parties are in a state of flux at the moment, but one party in particular is well organized and, according to local pundits, is scheduled to win the election. And that winning political party that will receive President Obama’s one billion dollar gift is a terrorist organization.

Permit me to explain. The one billion dollar gift will go to a well-known terrorist organization, an implacable enemy of our country. This terrorist organization was responsible for the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat following his courageous visit to Israel to address the Israeli Parliament. This enemy fathered the Hamas organization that seeks the destruction of Israel. This enemy prays for the destruction of our country and its people.

This terrorist enemy is none other than the Muslim Brotherhood, the Ikhwan. The leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood shares something in common with the late unlamented leader of al Qaeda, Usama bin Ladin. The Brotherhood believes there is only one overriding rule of behavior, Sharia Law. Yes, the same Sharia law that condemns all democratic forms of government as anti-Islam. The same law that considers women no more than chattel, hardly human. Sharia permits a husband to beat his wife (or wives) at will. Sharia permits a father to cut his daughter’s throat for walking about without a family-related male escort. Sharia requires a rape victim to produce four witnesses to the act. If she cannot do this, she, in turn, is charged with prostitution or, if she is married, with adultery. The latter is punishable by stoning to death. This group, the Muslim Brotherhood, the group that champions this Sharia law, is slated to get over one billion of our dollars from President Obama.

We should have known of our president’s favoring of the Arab. We all saw his bow to the Saudi king. We all see his readiness to permit the engagement of our military in support of an anti-Qadhafi organization without any idea of what this anti-Qadhafi organization represented. We all see his readiness to support any anti-regime group in the Maghreb and the Middle East with one major exception, the corrupt, anti-democratic, anti-Christian, anti-Semitic government of Saudi Arabia.

Must have something to do with his Islamic training as a young boy.

Proud to have served in the CIA

I have never been so proud of my service in the CIA. At the time I left active service in 1994, the Agency was in the throes of bureaucratic entanglements. Leadership of the Directorate of Operations, today's National Clandestine Service, was sorely lacking. Special Operations had been eviscerated. Case officers, the agent recruiters and handlers, had learned promotions came more easily and with no risk by networking at headquarters rather than working the less desirable areas of the globe in search of agent material. The watchword of the day was, "Avoid risk at all cost." Case officers knew,if there was a flap associated with their operation, no one, but no one had their back.

Then General Mike Hayden, a consummate intelligence professional, took over as Director of the CIA. He began the process of putting the Agency back on the right track. Leon Panetta, who followed General Hayden as Director, to the surprise of many at CIA, proved to be not only a protector of his people, he made them proud to be intelligence professionals. And they did not let him down.

Agency professionals, from case officers, analysts, technical ooperations specialists to interrogators, they all pursued Usama bin Laden with the knowledge their director and the rest of CIA's senior leadeership were behind them. And thanks to Mr. Panetta's special relationship with President Obama, all of CIA knew they had the full backing of their Commander-in-Chief.