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Four former CIA directors opposed releasing classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed release of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in order to detail internal government discussions. President Barack Obama ultimately overruled those concerns after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks after the former directors intervened. The...

Add president Obama's national intelligence czar, Dennis Blair, to the list of embattled top-level appointees. Blair, a retired four-star Navy admiral who attended Oxford with Bill Clinton, courted controversy among pro-Israel and anti-China activists this month when he named Charles (Chas) Freeman, an outspoken former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, to chair the National Intelligence Council, a committee of the government's top intel analysts. After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other pols complained to the White House, Freeman abruptly withdrew. Now both Republican and Democratic intel experts are raising questions about another Blair pick: John Deutch, a former CIA director once...

c By MICHELLE FAUL The Associated Press Tuesday, May 31, 2005; 9:20 PM SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit. A former...

Two former CIA directors have resigned from the board of the organization planning tomorrow to make public secret recordings of Saddam Hussein and his advisers. In the last week both John Deutch and James Woolsey abruptly left their positions at Intelligence Summit, according to its president, John Loftus, who said their departure is part of a campaign by the directorate of national intelligence to punish him for releasing the recordings.

AMERICAN foreign policy should be guided by two general principles: the first is advancing our security and political interests; the second is encouraging prosperity and responsive government for all people. It may be that with our encouragement and example, many countries will choose to adopt democracy and a market economy, presumably adapted to their own culture. Of course, others will follow a very different road for some time, perhaps indefinitely, as ethnic differences, poverty and historical and religious traditions affect and constrain choices. America embarks on an especially perilous course, however, when it actively attempts to establish a government based...

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR OF the Pentagon's $419.3 billion budget request for next year, only about $10.5 billion - 2 percent - will go toward basic research, applied research and advanced technology development. This represents a 20 percent reduction from last year, a drastic cutback that threatens the long-term security of the nation. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should reconsider this request, and if he does not, Congress should restore the cut. These research and development activities, known as the "technology base" program, are a vital part of the United States defense program. For good reason: the tech base is America's investment...

At the invitation of UPI, Jon Loose and I wrote this op-ed and submitted it a week ago. UPI told us that every single person who read it there said that this was not commentary but that it was news. They have told us they were assigning staff to cover this story. Since Newsmax has broken the story, I thought it time to put out information that has not yet come to light. The Cost of Life By Jon Loose and Connie Hair Hindsight is always 20/20. You see causes and proactive avenues that could have altered the outcome. Sometimes ...

DAVOS, Switzerland - The world needs an effort similar to that behind the creation of the atomic bomb to tackle the multi-faceted threat of biowarfare, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Thursday. "We need to do something that even dwarfs the Manhattan project," Frist told the World Economic Forum in Davos. The Manhattan project was the codename for the United States's World War II effort to devise an atomic weapon. "The greatest existential threat we have in the world today is biological. Why? Because unlike any other threat it has the power of panic and paralysis to be global."...

WASHINGTON, May 10 - Even now, 32 months after the Sept. 11 attacks, America's clandestine intelligence service has fewer than 1,100 case officers posted overseas, fewer than the number of F.B.I. agents assigned to the New York City field office alone, government officials say. Since George J. Tenet took charge of the Central Intelligence Agency seven years ago, rebuilding that service has been his top priority. This year, more new case officers will graduate from a year-long course at Camp Peary in Virginia than in any year since the Vietnam War. They are the products of aggressive new recruiting aimed...

100 people, including former CIA Director John Deutch gets pardon from William Jefferson Clinton Ex-CIA Chief Faces Allegations New York Times Jan. 21, 2001 WASHINGTON - With just hours to go in his presidency, Bill Clinton issued pardons Saturday to more than 100 people, including former CIA Director John Deutch; former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros; and Susan McDougal, a former Clinton business partner who was jailed in the Whitewater scandal. Associated Press Last Updated: Sept. 15, 2000 at 11:35:08 p.m. WASHINGTON - Former CIA Director John M. Deutch, who previously admitted to mishandling sensitive data while heading the CIA, is...