PBS: Obama's Picks for Top Intelligence Jobs Provoke Mixed Reactions

Democracy Now!


Obama Nominee Admiral Dennis Blair Aided Perpetrators of 1999 Church
Killings in East Timor (Part II)


January 07, 2009

Part II of our conversation with investigative journalist Allan Nairn,
who reveals Admiral Dennis Blair played a critical role in backing the
Indonesian occupation of East Timor during the 1990s. At the height of
a wave of ruthless attacks on Timorese that killed hundreds and
displaced tens of thousands, Blair personally informed top Indonesian
general, Wiranto, of unwavering US support. He continued to support
the Indonesian military until international outcry forced the Clinton
administration to withdraw its military and diplomatic
backing. [includes rush transcript]



AMY GOODMAN: Right now we’re going to turn to President Obama’s
cabinet. The President-elect Obama is facing a political challenge
over his choice to run the Central Intelligence Agency. Obama has
tapped Leon Panetta, a former Congress member and White House Chief of
Staff under President Clinton. Many observers call him a surprise pick
because of limited intelligence experience and his public opposition
to the Bush administration’s policies on torture. Obama defended
Panetta’s nomination at a news conference yesterday in Washington.

      PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: I have the utmost respect for Leon
      Panetta. I think that he is one of the finest public servants
      that we’ve had. He brings extraordinary management skills, great
      political savvy, an impeccable record of integrity. As chief of
      staff, he is somebody who­to the president­he’s somebody who
      obviously was fully versed in international affairs, crisis
      management, and had to evaluate intelligence consistently on a
      day-to-day basis. Having said all that, I have not made an
      announcement. When we make the announcement, I think what people
      will see is, is that we are putting together a top-notch
      intelligence team that is not only going to assure that I get
      the best possible intelligence unvarnished, that the
      intelligence community is no longer geared towards telling the
      president what they think the president wants to hear, but
      instead are going to be delivering the information that the
      president needs to make critical decisions to keep the American
      people safe. I think what you’re also going to see is a team
      that is committed to breaking past practices and concerns that
      have, I think, tarnished the image of the agencies, the
      intelligence agencies as well as US foreign policy. Last point I
      will make, though, on this is that there are outstanding
      intelligence professionals in the CIA, in DNI and others, and I
      have the utmost regard for the work that they’ve done, and we
      are committed to making sure that this is a team effort that’s
      not looking backwards but is looking forward to figure out how
      we are going to serve the American people best.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Barack Obama. And we’re going to talk about his
picks for the intelligence positions, but we have just gotten
Christopher Gunness back on the line, spokesperson for the UN Relief
and Works Agency, known as UNRWA. […]

We go back now to the story of top Democrats chiding Obama for not
consulting with them before announcing the pick and have suggested
they might oppose Leon Panetta to be head of Central Intelligence
Agency. In a brief statement, the new chair of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, Dianne Feinstein of California, said, “My position has
consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having
an intelligence professional in charge at this time.” The outgoing
Intelligence Committee chair, Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of
West Virginia, says he shares Feinstein’s concerns.

It’s interesting to compare that to how lawmakers are greeting Obama’s
other top intelligence pick. While members of Obama’s own party vow a
tough confirmation hearing for Leon Panetta, who has written against
torture during the Bush administration, they’ve expressed no
reservations about another nominee who has been accused of supporting
torture and murder abroad. The former commander of the US military
forces in the Pacific, Admiral Dennis Blair, has been tapped to become
the Director of National Intelligence. He would be Panetta’s
boss. It’s the nation’s top intelligence job, overseeing sixteen
agencies.

Admiral Blair played a critical role in backing the Indonesian
occupation of East Timor during the 1990s. At the height of the wave
of attacks on Timorese that killed hundreds and displaced tens of
thousands in 1999, Admiral Blair personally informed top Indonesian
general, Wiranto, of unwavering US support. He continued to support
the Indonesian military until international outcry forced the Clinton
administration to withdraw its military and diplomatic backing.

Yesterday, we began our conversation on Dennis Blair with Allan Nairn,
an award-winning investigative journalist who has reported from
Indonesia for years. In 1999, he broke the story on Blair’s secret
meeting backing the Indonesian military. Today, Allan Nairn is back in
the firehouse with us for part two of this discussion.

We did invite Admiral Blair to join us on this broadcast, but he
declined our request through a spokesperson, saying nominees would
speak after the inauguration.

Allan Nairn, to summarize, you were in East Timor in 1999 when the
people East Timor were voting for independence. Can you talk about the
period leading up to that and what Admiral Blair had to do with it?

ALLAN NAIRN: The Indonesian military had invaded East Timor after a
go-ahead from President Ford and Henry Kissinger. They killed a third
of the population, the greatest proportional genocide since the
Nazis. They established an occupation in which no one could speak,
people could be dragged from their homes, tortured, executed at any
moment.

But the Timorese resisted. In ’91, there was a massacre outside the
cemetery in Dili, the massacre which we survived. They killed hundreds
of people. That got a bit of international attention. The political
tide started to turn when Suharto, the US-backed dictator of
Indonesia, fell in ’98. After that, the Timorese were granted the
right to have a vote, a free election, a UN-supervised referendum, on
whether they wanted to be independent.

The Indonesian army decided that they would try to derail this free
election. They set up militias to terrorize the population. Throughout
1999, they would attack civilians, raid churches. In several
incidents, they raped nuns and burned the bodies. In the midst of
this, after the massacre at the church in Liquica in which about fifty
were killed, hacked to death with machetes­

AMY GOODMAN: Liquica in East Timor.

ALLAN NAIRN: In East Timor­their entrails hanging from the walls,
Admiral Blair, at that time the commander of US forces in the Pacific,
personally went and met with the Indonesian military commander,
General Wiranto.

Blair had a mission, which had been given to him by the US State
Department and White House, to tell Wiranto, “Stop the massacres.”
Blair did not do that. He apparently defied what he had been sent to
do, and he instead reassured Wiranto. This is according to the
confidential cables which reported on the meeting, the US cables. He
offered new US military aid to Wiranto. He invited him to come to
Hawaii as his guest. He offered assistance for the Brimob, the
paramilitary police that had directly participated in the Liquica
massacre. When word got back to Washington, the State Department said,
“You can’t do this. You have to talk to Wiranto again.” He called
Wiranto on the phone and again did not tell him to shut the militias
down. Wiranto was delighted. He escalated the militia terror. The
killing of Timorese civilians increased.

At one point, in July of ’99, Blair sent in his subordinate, Admiral
Clemens, who was running the US Navy in the Pacific, for meetings with
the Indonesian military about setting up a US base, training facility
in Surabaya. The message from Admiral Blair was that the US military
was backing Indonesia’s army as they were massacring churches and
killing civilians in East Timor.

Now, we just heard the clip where President-elect Obama said­he was
talking about a departure from past practice. Yesterday, the think
tank of Podesta, the transition chief for Obama, put out an item in
which they said that the nomination of Blair and other officials is
“indicative of Obama’s intent to work within rule of law.” Supporting
those who were massacring churches is working within the rule of
law. If that is the Obama administration’s definition of the rule of
law, that means it is no departure from past US practice, because in
dozens of countries over the years, the US has supported forces which
kill civilians, and this suggests that Obama plans to continue that
and simply say he’s complying with the law.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain how you know what Dennis Blair, the admiral in
charge of the Pacific Command at the time, said to General Wiranto in
a private meeting.

ALLAN NAIRN: I got the cables, which were the transcripts of the
meetings prepared by Blair’s people. After they­when they have
meetings, they have their aides sitting there. They prepare an
official report. It’s classified. It’s sent back to Washington. And I
obtained those cables.

AMY GOODMAN: You had a chance to question President Clinton about
this. We went to East Timor, May 20th, 2002, at the time that the
people of East Timor celebrated their independence, when East Timor
became an independent nation. The next day, President Clinton, who was
there representing, interestingly, President Bush at the time,
President Clinton went to the building that was being dedicated as the
US embassy in East Timor. And after he spoke, you questioned him about
this whole situation and about Admiral Blair. This is an excerpt of
your interaction.

      ALLAN NAIRN: President Clinton, you sold weapons to the
      Indonesian military. You brought General Suharto, the Indonesian
      dictator, to the Oval Office and offered him F-16s. The next
      day, a White House official told the New York Times Suharto was
      “our kind of guy.” Your administration under the JCET program
      sent Green Berets into Indonesia. They trained the Indonesian
      Kopassus Special Forces in advanced sniper technique, urban
      warfare and similar tactics. In 1999, in April, when the
      Indonesian military and their militias massacred­

      BILL CLINTON: Get to the point.

      ALLAN NAIRN: I’m getting to the point. I’m getting to the point.

      BILL CLINTON: Get to the point.

      ALLAN NAIRN: Yes, I’m getting exactly to the point. the first
      day and say he is stopping it, it will continue, and he’ll be
      responsible.

      AMY GOODMAN: Well, for example, he’s saying he will close Guantanamo.

      ALLAN NAIRN: That’s good. Right now liberals and Democrats are
      focused on the twists that Bush added to this system, US people
      directly involved in torture, Guantanamo, the chain of CIA
      secret prisons. Assume Obama shuts all that down. Then we’re
      just back to where we were before Bush, which was the US backing
      forces that kill civilians in dozens of countries around the
      world and torture being carried out with US support, except the
      torture is done by the local forces that the US is training and
      supplying. In El Salvador, for example, the CIA would give
      courses to members of the National Guard, the National Police
      and the Treasury Police. They would do the torture. The CIA
      people would stand in the next room. They would watch. They
      would slip in questions. So, if we go back to that system, is
      that­that doesn’t make any difference to the person being
      tortured, whether the hand that wields the razorblade is an
      American hand or a local hand. The problem is the torture
      itself.

      AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Mayor Bloomberg in Gaza, and
      this is where we’ll end. We have a clip of the news
      conference. He was interviewed by CNN after he went to Israel.

            MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: If you’re in your apartment, and
            some emotionally disturbed person is banging on the door,
            screaming, “I’m going to come through this door and kill
            you!” do you want us to respond with one police officer,
            which is proportional, or with all the resources at our
            command? Just think about it in that context. There’s no
            so such thing as proportional response to terrorism. This
            is not a game that we’re playing by the Marquess of
            Queensbury rules. People’s lives are at risk. And I can
            tell you, in New York City, we would not do anything but
            use all our resources to keep you safe. And in America, we
            use all our resources to keep you safe. We wouldn’t get
            involved in these ridiculous things like
            proportionalism. Proportionalism is for theoreticians. The
            real world is, governments have a responsibility to
            protect their citizens with everything that they have.

      AMY GOODMAN: New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Final response,
      Allan Nairn?

      ALLAN NAIRN: Bloomberg says proportionalism is stupid, it’s
      “ridiculous.” Osama bin Laden would agree. This is the ethic of
      terrorism. By that standard, does that mean that the
      Palestinians are now allowed to start killing Israelis at the
      ratio of 100-to-1? Israel is now killing 100 Palestinians for
      every Israeli. Does that mean, with 600 Palestinians dead, there
      should now be 600 Israelis dead? And since Bloomberg rejects
      proportionalism entirely, that’s a license for Palestinians to
      kill all of Israel, to kill all of America, for everyone to kill
      everyone. This is the ethic and the logic of terrorists, and
      this is the ethic and the logic that still, unfortunately,
      governs the rulers of the United States. And Mayor Bloomberg was
      simply stating what is commonplace thinking. And unless Obama
      rejects that on his first day, the US will continue killing
      civilians. It’s right there in front of us. It’s right there in
      the statements. It’s right there in the actions. It’s there in
      the bodies of people who were torn up by American
      munitions. We’ve got to see it and stop it.

      AMY GOODMAN: Allan Nairn, I want to thank you for being with us,
      award-winning journalist, speaking to us here in New York. We’ll
      link to your blog at allannairn.com.


      Related Links
          o AllanNairn .com
          o East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)
          o Related Democracy Now! Coverage 


      Full transcript here:
      http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june09/intelteam_01-06.html

      PBS Newshour

      Originally Aired: January 6, 2009 []

      Obama's Picks for Top Intelligence Jobs Provoke Mixed Reactions

      President-elect Barack Obama's appointments for the nation's top
      intelligence jobs were met with skepticism by some members of
      Congress who expected candidates with more intelligence
      experience. Intelligence analysts mull the appointments.

      JIM LEHRER: Now, the new team to run American intelligence. Judy
      Woodruff has that story.

      JUDY WOODRUFF: Even Washington insiders were caught off-guard by
      the word that one of their own, Leon Panetta, is President-elect
      Obama's choice to run the CIA.

      Although the appointment is still not official, Mr. Obama
      praised Panetta today for his management skills and integrity. A
      former member of Congress, Panetta served as chief of staff to
      President Clinton and was a member of the Baker-Hamilton
      Commission on Iraq.

      The pick for director of national intelligence is retired
      Admiral Dennis Blair. He once served as Pentagon liaison to the
      CIA.

      We get the views now of two intelligence professionals. Michael
      Scheuer headed the CIA team responsible for hunting Osama bin
      Laden in the late 1990s. He's now a fellow at the Jamestown
      Foundation. His forthcoming book is "Marching Toward Hell:
      America and Islam after Iraq."

      And Ray McGovern worked as a CIA analyst for 27 years. He's now
      a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a
      group of former intelligence officers.

      Gentlemen, thank you both for being with us.

      ... [This part is about Panetta and Bush.]


      Dennis Blair's career history

      JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me ask you both about Dennis Blair, who is
      reported to be Mr. Obama's choice to head -- to become the new
      director of national intelligence. Your take on him,
      Mr. Scheuer?

      MICHAEL SCHEUER: I think, you know, for the first time and since
      Vietnam, America has a number of two- and three-star generals,
      who are serving at the moment, who have had combat experience
      recently, who know how the intelligence community interrelates
      with the military, both the pluses and the minuses, to bring an
      admiral who last served in the Pacific out of retirement seems
      to me to be ignoring a great deal of expertise that's available
      in the still-serving military.

      So I would think that, with all respect for Admiral Blair, there
      was a lot of people who would have been a better choice.

      JUDY WOODRUFF: And we should say he will be the boss of the CIA director.

      What about Dennis Blair?

      RAY MCGOVERN: Nominally. Well, I know very little about him. He
      has a good reputation as a strategic thinker, but when he was
      CINCPAC, the chief of the Pacific forces, he actually coddled
      the Indonesian military when they brutally suppressed people in
      East Timor, who were striving for their rights.

      There's documentary proof out of the State Department and the
      NSC that he pretty much winked at the instructions he had to get
      those generals to ease off the torture and the massacre that
      they did. And he just went ahead and coddled them and gave them
      to believe that they could go ahead and keep doing that.

      MICHAEL SCHEUER: The American -- you know, this whole business
      on rendition and prisons and the rest of it has been a very
      politicized issue. The fact is, America is much safer today for
      the people that have been rendered and imprisoned.

      Mr. Obama, Mr. Panetta, Mr. McGovern are all very good at
      wanting to destroy that function, that operation that has
      protected America. They have nothing to replace it with.

      JUDY WOODRUFF: We are going to have to leave it there. Much more
      to be said on all of this. But we thank you both for being with
      us, Ray McGovern and Michael Scheuer. Thank you very much.

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