Jim Kouri
Brennan CIA confirmation stonewalled pending killer drone investigation
By Jim Kouri
President Barack Obama's CIA nominee John Brennan's confirmation is being stonewalled by republican and democrat lawmakers due to questions about Obama's use of a "lethal drone program," according to Fox News Channel's Catherine Herridge, FNC's chief national security correspondent, on Thursday.
"We will see if that actually happens or not," Chris Anders, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU told Fox News' Herridge. "If it doesn't, that's a pretty big signal this nomination is in trouble largely over this (drone) issue," Anders said.
Herridge reports that the Brennan confirmation has already been pushed back two weeks over a handful of issues ranging from the Benghazi terrorist attack to drones, including the growing bipartisan push on Capitol Hill for the Obama White House to release all the legal memos justifying the targeted killing of American citizens overseas.
According to Herridge's Thursday report, during a hearing on the use of drones to hunt-down and kill American jihadists overseas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said the Obama administration must do more explaining: "The American people deserve to know and understand the legal basis under which the Obama administration believes it can kill U.S. citizens, and under what circumstances," Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said.
When President Barack Obama officially nominated Brennan for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency position, counterterrorism officials at all levels of government said they hoped the Senate confirmation hearings and debates would give Americans a clear understanding of what makes Brennan tick. Instead, the White House version of Brennan's qualifications were pushed by the Democrats and allowed to go unchallenged by some feckless Republicans, according to former intelligence officer and criminal investigator Sid Franes.
"People in the White House say [he] is legendary in the White House for working hard," said Obama when announcing the nomination, adding that he wasn't sure if Brennan had slept in four years. However, some experts claim Brennan is not a good choice for such an important national security role.
Brennan, who served a quarter-century with the CIA, has served as Obama's top counterterrorism aide since 2009. If confirmed, he will fill the post left vacant by David Petraeus, who resigned in November during an extramarital-affair scandal.
"In John Brennan the men and women of the CIA will have the leadership of our nation's most skilled intelligence professionals," said Obama. ""That unique combination of smarts and strength that he claims comes from growing up in New Jersey."
But not everyone is enthusiastic about Brennan being the new CIA chief.
"Mr. Brennan is, at best, willfully blind to the threat posed to homeland and national security of the United States by those who adhere to Shariah law," said Tom Trento, director of Florida Security Council, who has been critical of Brennan's service in the Obama White House.
Some of the nation's top intelligence, military, national security and law enforcement experts once loudly called for John Brennan to resign from his post or for President Barack Obama to fire Brennan.
During a press conference in September 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., respected experts, including officials from the Florida Security Council, told reporters that because of Brennan's adherence to the politically-correct orthodoxy that permeates the Obama administration, the U.S. government is being prevented from identifying, understanding and countering radical Muslims and their threat of imposing Shariah law.
Frank Gaffney, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration, and others claim that Shariah is a supremacist, totalitarian legal doctrine that leads to terrorism, torture, abuse of women and young girls, and other horrors.
A major piece of evidence that points to the dangers associated with Brennan's failure to perform his primary function – to know the enemy and its threat doctrine – came to light when analysts at the Florida Security Council discovered that a known Hamas operative and unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history (Holy Land Foundation), Sheik Kifah Mustapha,participated in a six-week-long, government-sponsored "Citizens Academy" hosted by the FBI as part of its outreach to the Muslim community.
During the six-week FBI program, Mustapha – a man tied to an officially designated terrorist organization – was escorted into the top secret National Counterterrorism Center and other secure government facilities, including the FBI National Academy located on the Quantico U.S. Marine Base in Virginia.
Terrorism expert Steve Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, exposed Mustapha's appointment in Illinois to a post as a State Police chaplain. However, according to Illinois officials, the appointment was revoked in spite of the protests of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan must resign his post immediately," said Mr. Gaffney, whose Center for Security Policy released a report entitled, Shariah: The Threat to America.
Former CIA chief of the Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, writing on the Center for Security Policy's web site, claims: "When, in December, 1995, the Agency set up a unit to dismantle al-Qaeda and capture or help the U.S. military kill Osama bin Laden, one of that unit's first actions was to ask Mr. Brennan – who was then what George Tenet has described as "CIA's senior officer on the Arabian Peninsula" – to secure from the Saudi intelligence service some very basic information and documents about bin Laden. The Saudis did not respond, and so the bin Laden unit sent frequent messages to Mr. Brennan asking him to secure the data. When we finally received a response from Mr. Brennan, it was to tell us that he would no longer pass the bin Laden unit's requests to the Saudis because they were annoyed by them. DCI George Tenet backed Mr. Brennan's decision, and when I resigned from CIA in November 2004, the Saudis had not delivered the requested data."
© Jim Kouri
March 2, 2013
President Barack Obama's CIA nominee John Brennan's confirmation is being stonewalled by republican and democrat lawmakers due to questions about Obama's use of a "lethal drone program," according to Fox News Channel's Catherine Herridge, FNC's chief national security correspondent, on Thursday.
"We will see if that actually happens or not," Chris Anders, senior legislative counsel for the ACLU told Fox News' Herridge. "If it doesn't, that's a pretty big signal this nomination is in trouble largely over this (drone) issue," Anders said.
Herridge reports that the Brennan confirmation has already been pushed back two weeks over a handful of issues ranging from the Benghazi terrorist attack to drones, including the growing bipartisan push on Capitol Hill for the Obama White House to release all the legal memos justifying the targeted killing of American citizens overseas.
According to Herridge's Thursday report, during a hearing on the use of drones to hunt-down and kill American jihadists overseas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said the Obama administration must do more explaining: "The American people deserve to know and understand the legal basis under which the Obama administration believes it can kill U.S. citizens, and under what circumstances," Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said.
When President Barack Obama officially nominated Brennan for the director of the Central Intelligence Agency position, counterterrorism officials at all levels of government said they hoped the Senate confirmation hearings and debates would give Americans a clear understanding of what makes Brennan tick. Instead, the White House version of Brennan's qualifications were pushed by the Democrats and allowed to go unchallenged by some feckless Republicans, according to former intelligence officer and criminal investigator Sid Franes.
"People in the White House say [he] is legendary in the White House for working hard," said Obama when announcing the nomination, adding that he wasn't sure if Brennan had slept in four years. However, some experts claim Brennan is not a good choice for such an important national security role.
Brennan, who served a quarter-century with the CIA, has served as Obama's top counterterrorism aide since 2009. If confirmed, he will fill the post left vacant by David Petraeus, who resigned in November during an extramarital-affair scandal.
"In John Brennan the men and women of the CIA will have the leadership of our nation's most skilled intelligence professionals," said Obama. ""That unique combination of smarts and strength that he claims comes from growing up in New Jersey."
But not everyone is enthusiastic about Brennan being the new CIA chief.
"Mr. Brennan is, at best, willfully blind to the threat posed to homeland and national security of the United States by those who adhere to Shariah law," said Tom Trento, director of Florida Security Council, who has been critical of Brennan's service in the Obama White House.
Some of the nation's top intelligence, military, national security and law enforcement experts once loudly called for John Brennan to resign from his post or for President Barack Obama to fire Brennan.
During a press conference in September 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., respected experts, including officials from the Florida Security Council, told reporters that because of Brennan's adherence to the politically-correct orthodoxy that permeates the Obama administration, the U.S. government is being prevented from identifying, understanding and countering radical Muslims and their threat of imposing Shariah law.
Frank Gaffney, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration, and others claim that Shariah is a supremacist, totalitarian legal doctrine that leads to terrorism, torture, abuse of women and young girls, and other horrors.
A major piece of evidence that points to the dangers associated with Brennan's failure to perform his primary function – to know the enemy and its threat doctrine – came to light when analysts at the Florida Security Council discovered that a known Hamas operative and unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history (Holy Land Foundation), Sheik Kifah Mustapha,participated in a six-week-long, government-sponsored "Citizens Academy" hosted by the FBI as part of its outreach to the Muslim community.
During the six-week FBI program, Mustapha – a man tied to an officially designated terrorist organization – was escorted into the top secret National Counterterrorism Center and other secure government facilities, including the FBI National Academy located on the Quantico U.S. Marine Base in Virginia.
Terrorism expert Steve Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, exposed Mustapha's appointment in Illinois to a post as a State Police chaplain. However, according to Illinois officials, the appointment was revoked in spite of the protests of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
"Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan must resign his post immediately," said Mr. Gaffney, whose Center for Security Policy released a report entitled, Shariah: The Threat to America.
Former CIA chief of the Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer, writing on the Center for Security Policy's web site, claims: "When, in December, 1995, the Agency set up a unit to dismantle al-Qaeda and capture or help the U.S. military kill Osama bin Laden, one of that unit's first actions was to ask Mr. Brennan – who was then what George Tenet has described as "CIA's senior officer on the Arabian Peninsula" – to secure from the Saudi intelligence service some very basic information and documents about bin Laden. The Saudis did not respond, and so the bin Laden unit sent frequent messages to Mr. Brennan asking him to secure the data. When we finally received a response from Mr. Brennan, it was to tell us that he would no longer pass the bin Laden unit's requests to the Saudis because they were annoyed by them. DCI George Tenet backed Mr. Brennan's decision, and when I resigned from CIA in November 2004, the Saudis had not delivered the requested data."
© Jim Kouri
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