Last Wednesday, at 3:46 p.m., the White House Office of Public Engagement (WHOPE) sent an email message to 9/11 families to announce it was sponsoring a conference call the next day with victims' families in anticipation of the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The purpose of the call was "to discuss the Administration's plans to mark the day." We were informed that Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor for strategic communications, and John Brennan, deputy national security advisor for homeland security and counterterrorism, would make brief remarks and take questions.
The White House had already publicly announced that the president would be visiting all three attack sites in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. So I was genuinely curious as to what Rhodes and Brennan would have to say on a call that was being put together with so little notice. Ben Rhodes is the White House speech writer credited with writing the president's 2009 Cairo speech. John Brennan is the national security point man noted for speaking in Arabic to Muslim grievance organizations, even referring to Jerusalem in one such speech as "al Quds," the name preferred by the terrorist group Hamas.
The email invitation emphasized (in red, bold-face type) that "this is off-the-record and not a press call." This was reiterated when the call began 24 hours later. What, I wondered, would this group of 9/11 family members be hearing that had to be deemed off limits to the press and general public? How did the White House imagine that such a call could be off-the-record? We aren't professional journalists who can be threatened or punished with diminished access. And we are not reporters, who have, at least implicitly, made an agreement to develop a relationship with a source. We're 9/11 victims' families.
Rhodes began the call by telling us that the president hoped to accomplish three things on the 10th anniversary. Above all, he would remember the victims and express support for their families. We, and our loved ones, we were told, will be at the forefront of the president's mind. The second area of the president's focus will be the prevention of future attacks. Third, he will pay tribute to the nation's military, those who have shouldered the heaviest burden these last ten years. The bin Laden killing was invoked and mentioned repeatedly throughout the call.
Brennan's remarks were a summary of the administration's national security successes and goals. With regard to the bin Laden operation, Brennan said, "I've been involved in the hunt for bin Laden for the better part of two decades." He told us that he "has lost close friends and colleagues to terrorist attacks." The bin Laden killing, he said, was a "significant event," a "poignant" moment that created "finality." But "our work is not over," Brennan said.
I have no idea how many family members were on the call. We were put on listen only mode. As the loquacious Rhodes talked about the president's planned August 30th speech to the American Legion, I began tapping my pen impatiently, waiting for some actual news or clue as to the real purpose behind this WHOPE conference call. I was skeptical. In two and a half years, the White House has ignored the concerns of 9/11 families, whether it was our objecting to trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 conspirators in a civilian court in lower Manhattan, or our questioning of the president's support for a 15-story megamosque at Ground Zero on the site where wreckage from one of the hijacked planes rained down and plunged through the building that will be demolished to make way for the mosque.
A recently leaked threat assessment prepared at Guantanamo draws into question the Obama administration’s analysis of a detainee who was transferred to Yemen shortly before all future transfers to the unstable nation were suspended.
Let’s revisit for a moment John Brennan’s remarks at the Nixon Center in May. Brennan is assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism. Here is the Reuters dispatch:
On 60 Minutes Sunday night, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made what CBS News rightly called a “remarkable” allegation. Secretary Clinton was first asked if the would-be Times Square bomber had ties to terrorists operating out of Pakistan. “There are connections,” Clinton responded before expressing some ambiguity as to the precise nature of those connections. (Other senior Obama administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama’s chief counterterrorism advisor John Brennan clarified those connections earlier in the day.)
Clinton was asked what message she would deliver to the Pakistanis in the wake of the Times Square attack. She answered:
On Wednesday, March 3, the Senate Armed Services Committee will be holding a closed hearing to “receive a briefing on policies, procedures, and practices relating to the transfer of detainees held at the Guantanamo Detention Facility.” The hearing presents an opportunity for senators to ask tough, but fair, questions about the Obama administration’s detainee transfer policies.
President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, is once again drawing criticism. This time, Brennan’s remarks concerning the Pentagon’s latest Gitmo recidivism study have come under scrutiny.
The Pentagon’s most recent study on Gitmo recidivism concluded that 20 percent of detainees have either been confirmed as, or are suspected of, returning to terrorism. Brennan cited the 20 percent figure in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional leaders earlier this month. Brennan explained that this figure “includes 9.6 percent of detainees who are confirmed recidivists and 10.4 percent of detainees who the Intelligence Community suspects, but is not certain, may have engaged in recidivist activities.”
In a USA Today op-ed this week, assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser John Brennan wrote that "politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda." He's referring to the bipartisan criticism of the administration's decision to Mirandize the Christmas Day bomber rather than detain Abdulmutallab as an enemy combatant. Accusing your opponents of helping al Qaeda is not the best way to resolve an argument! Yesterday, Alabama senator Jeff Sessions took to the Senate floor to rebut Brennan's arguments. Roll tape:
During an interview on MSNBC Thursday morning, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs defended the Obama administration’s handling of Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Gibbs argued that the administration was right to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, instead of as an enemy combatant. “Just because you make somebody an enemy combatant [it] doesn’t make them talk,” Gibbs argued.
It was not too long ago that Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer took to the USA Today op-ed page to accuse Obamacare opponents of being "un-American," and today President Obama's top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan lashes out on that same page at critics of the White House: "too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming to
Jake Tapper of ABC News has obtained a copy of a letter John Brennan, the assistant to President Obama for homeland security and counterterrorism, sent to congressional leaders Monday night. Brennan defends the administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo in the letter. While conceding that the number of former detainees who are “confirmed” or “suspected” of returning to terrorism has risen to 20 percent, Brennan says that all of the recidivists were released during the Bush years. Brennan goes on to argue that the Obama administration has made “significant improvements to the detainee review process,” implying that it is being more careful in determining which detainees can be transferred or released than its predecessor.
Changing the Zip Code of the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terrorists from New York City to Somewhere, U.S.A. does not solve the problems a civilian trial raised in the first place. The decision does provide some justice because hundreds of millions of dollars in security costs will not be borne by the city that was the major victim of this terrorist quintet. But security and other issues do not disappear with new geography; they just move to the next location.
