Though well ensconced at home in Russia, accused leaker and U.S. defector Edward Snowden nonetheless took center stage at former Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation hearing for Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on Thursday, and frankly, he never left.
For her part, Gabbard utilized her opening remarks to focus on what she perceives would be her intelligence role, explaining that previous Intelligence Community (IC) decisions — including “failures” but also “fabrications”— have led to major foreign policy blunders, a toll on American servicemen and women, and precipitated massive human suffering.
“Our complete failure of intelligence…has led to costly failures and the undermining of our national security and god-given rights enshrined in the constitution,” Gabbard elucidated to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “The most obvious example of one of these [U.S. intelligence] failures is our invasion of Iraq based upon a total fabrication, our complete failure of intelligence. This disastrous decision led to the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers, millions of people in the Middle East…the rise of ISIS, the strengthening of Al Qaeda and other Islamist Jihadist groups.”
Gabbard connected such remarks to ongoing developments in Syria, citing a 2012 email where Obama’s assistant national security advisor Jake Sullivan told then secretary of state Hillary Clinton that “[Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”
“Syria is now controlled by al-Qaeda offshoot HTS, led by an Islamist Jihadist who danced in the streets on 9/11, and who was responsible for the killing of many American soldiers,” Gabbard explained.
Explaining that time in the military and Congress taught her ”the heavy costs of intelligence failures and abuses,” Gabbard said she would ”work to end the politicization of the intelligence community” and “ensure there is a clear mission focus in the IC on its core mission of…unbiased, apolitical collection and analysis of intelligence” as DNI. Läs artikel