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A senior CIA official this week said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is "absolutely wrong" to oppose placing all components of the intelligence community -- including those now under the authority of the Pentagon -- under the centralized control of the director of central intelligence. James Simon, assistant director of central intelligence for administration, said he supports a recommendation advanced by retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft, head of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, to transfer the National Security Agency, National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and National Reconnaissance Office from the purview of DOD to direct DCI control. "Brent...

Brent Scowcroft was a great American, as was Lawrence Eagleburger. Both served our country well throughout their lives. Except once. June 4th, 1989, the Communist Party of China unleashed a slaughter and then round-up of activists and students who had bravely demanded a more democratic China. Less than 6 weeks later, while bodies of students were still in Beijing morgues, Scowcroft and Eagleburger, encouraged by James Lilly, and of course with the full backing of then President George H. Bush, undertook a secret mission to Beijing to let the butchers know, “we’ve got your back”. Alternative historical timelines are somewhat...

Did United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan hightail it to Moscow to check in with his handpicked UN reform man Yevgeny Primakov within weeks of William Safire’s New York Times expose on alleged scandal in the Oil-For-Food Program? The first of Safire’s groundbreaking Oil-For-Food investigative stories ran in mid-March, 2004. Here’s Annan’s Moscow itinerary as documented by The Russian Federation: "Annan arrived in Moscow on Sunday, April 4, 2004 where he had an early working dinner with Evgeni (sic) Primakov, former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation." On the following day, Annan visited the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where...

Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor to President George H.W. Bush and one of the leading figures of the Republican national security establishment, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president Wednesday. The endorsement is the most high-profile indication yet of the depth of discomfort that Republican foreign policy figures feel about Donald Trump as their party's nominee. The Clinton campaign sees doubts about Trump's ability to handle foreign policy as a major plus for their side. Endorsements by well-known Republican foreign policy figures could add to her advantage on that front. "The presidency requires the judgment and knowledge to make tough calls...

Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity The Buried Story Behind PlamegateBy Fedora Introduction Since Robert Novak mentioned Valerie Plame’s CIA background in July 2003, the media has focused on trying to trace the leak of Plame’s name to the White House, but has devoted less follow-up to another newsworthy angle in Novak’s original story. Novak wrote: The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. . . Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife,...

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain? Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for...

WASHINGTON -- Many of the Republicans emerging as potential members of the Obama administration have professional and ideological ties to Brent Scowcroft, a former national-security adviser turned public critic of the Bush White House.Mr. Scowcroft spoke by phone with President-elect Barack Obama last week, the latest in a months-long series of conversations between the two men about defense and foreign-policy issues, according to people familiar with the discussions. Brent Scowcroft The relationship between the president-elect and the Republican heavyweight suggests that Mr. Scowcroft's views, which place a premium on an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord, might hold sway in the Obama White...

U.S. National Security Adviser Jones gave these remarks at the 45th Munich Conference on Security Policy at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof on February 8, 2009. "Thank you for that wonderful tribute to Henry Kissinger yesterday. Congratulations. As the most recent National Security Advisor of the United States, I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger, filtered down through Generaal Brent Scowcroft and Sandy Berger, who is also here. We have a chain of command in the National Security Council that exists today.

A top economic adviser to US President Barack Obama, along with nine former senior officials, is calling on the American leader to launch a dialogue with Hamas, the The Boston Globe reported Saturday. SLIDESHOW: Israel & Region | World According to the report, Paul A. Volcker and other members of the bipartisan group - including former national security advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski - have sent a letter to Obama urging him to engage Hamas in order to coax the terrorist organization to disarm and join a peaceful Palestinian unity government.

When Barack Obama ran for president, especially in the primaries, he relied on a group of foreign-policy advisers that included radical leftist thinkers like Robert Malley, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power. The rise of Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State gave political watchers the first indication that Obama would not follow that direction after winning office by gaining the trust of the Left. The Wall Street Journal looks at the rest of the team forming on foreign policy and sees even stronger indications that Obama will instead fall back to the foreign policy direction of President Bush — George H....

Obama Favors Republicans With Scowcroft Ties By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and SIOBHAN GORMAN WASHINGTON -- Many of the Republicans emerging as potential members of the Obama administration have professional and ideological ties to Brent Scowcroft, a former national-security adviser turned public critic of the Bush White House. Mr. Scowcroft spoke by phone with President-elect Barack Obama last week, the latest in a months-long series of conversations between the two men about defense and foreign-policy issues, according to people familiar with the discussions. [Brent Scowcroft] Brent Scowcroft The relationship between the president-elect and the Republican heavyweight suggests that Mr. Scowcroft's views,...

The Bush administration should stop talking about a military attack as an option if negotiations do not immediately halt Iran's uranium reprocessing program, two former national security advisers said yesterday. "Don't talk about 'do we bomb them now or later?' " said Brent Scowcroft, adviser to presidents Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush, during a discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on the negotiations between the United States and Iran. Scowcroft added that by mentioning that threat, "we legitimize the use of force . . . and may tempt the Israelis" to carry out such a...

Speculation is mounting (except, of course, among the “professional” press), as to the identities of six of the eight individuals included in the Libby subpoena to The New York Times (see Clarice Feldman’s piece here). The Times deemed the identities of only two of the parties worthy of release, former CIA director George Tenet and former White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer. The names of the other six remain elusive

THE Iraq Study Group report was released into a sea of unrealistic expectations. Inevitably, it disappointed hopes for a clear path through the morass of Iraq, because there is no “silver bullet” solution to the difficulties in which we find ourselves. But the report accomplished a great deal. It brought together some of America’s best minds across party lines, and it outlined with clarity and precision the key factors at issue in Iraq. In doing so, it helped catalyze the debate about our Iraq policy and crystallize the choices we face. Above all, it emphasized the importance of focusing on...

Sibel Edmonds vindicated? FBI reveals investigation continues 25.10.2006 Source: URL: http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/85192-Sibel_Edmonds-0 On October 10, 2006, FBI spokesman Bill Carter confirmed that matters raised by Sibel Edmonds and shielded form public view by the invocation of the US States Secret privilege were still under internal investigation by the Bureau. “Due to the fact that the allegations of Sibel Edmonds reflect internal administrative and investigative matters it would not be appropriate to respond to your inquiry. I will point out that the DOJ Office of the Inspector General has reviewed this matter and released a public report. I would refer this report...

ELEANOR HALL: A key US military strategist who counts the former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, among his students, is absolutely scathing about the current Bush administration's strategy in Iraq and says no one except the President is in any doubt that it should change. Harlan Ullman who's now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, says the US lost control of events in Iraq almost immediately after the invasion and that far from assisting in the development of democracy, the US-led allies, including Australia, have fomented chaos. But Dr Ullman says he holds out little hope that either...

There are numerous competing theories about the principles which should underlie foreign policy. Let us first dispose of one of the most despicable. It is represented in the UK by Clare Short and in the US by the more substantial figure of Bill Clinton. It seems to include virtually all the people who strongly advocated military action in the former Yugoslavia, but opposed the liberation of Kuwait, and/or the liberation of Iraq. Their analysis seems to go like this: Human rights are important. Human rights deserve to be defended. Sometimes the most egregious breaches of human rights demand the mobilisation...

There are at least two elements essential to "success" in Iraq. The first is a central government that meets the needs of the people well enough to secure their sustained support, shows sufficient consideration for minority rights to win the loyalty of those minorities and demonstrates a credible determination to live in peace with its neighbors. The second is an effective, highly disciplined military and security establishment that gives its allegiance not to various elements within Iraqi society but solely to the central government. The fundamental question for the United States is what kind of policy is most likely to...

Former ambassador speaks on Iraq, CIA leak investigation In a talk sponsored by the Northeastern College Democrats at Blackman Auditorium Nov. 21, Wilson laid out the story of how he had gone from being a relatively anonymous state department official to "Valerie Plame's husband," sparing few from potent verbal attacks along the way. He was able to provide the audience with a full account of the trip to Niger he called the reason for his character assassination and, as a "side issue," his reaction to the outing of his wife's identity as a spy with the CIA. Wilson, a former...

Mr. Stability The wrongness of Brent Scowcroft's realism. By Christopher Hitchens Posted Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2005, at 1:47 PM ET Scowcroft longs for the "peace" of Saddam's regime The sole point of the non-findings of the Fitzgerald non-investigation, into the non-commission of non-crimes and the non-outing of a non-covert CIA bureaucrat, is (as Messrs. Kerry, Krugman, Rich, and others keep reminding us) that it might even yet trigger the long-awaited inquest into the Iraq intervention. I very strongly hope that there is a full-dress postmortem into this country's Iraq policy, though I am not ready to assume that "inquest" or...