Obama nominates new national spy chief
WASHINGTON:
President Barack Obama on Saturday nominated retired air force lieutenant-general James Clapper for the slot of Director of National Intelligence.
Clapper, whose nomination would require US Senate approval, would take over from Dennis Blair, who stepped down in May. The retired lieutenant-general is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who champions using people to gather raw intelligence.
Clapper currently serves as the Pentagon’s intelligence chief, a job to which he was nominated in 2007 by then-president George W Bush.
The retired general has also served as director of the Defence Intelligence Agency under former president Bill Clinton.
Clapper retired from the US Air Force in 1995 after a 32-year career in which he held senior intelligence jobs during the first Gulf War as well as in US forces in Korea, the US Pacific Command, and the Strategic Command in charge of US nuclear weapons, space operations, and intelligence efforts.
He has also reportedly pushed for greater Pentagon control over the treatment of suspected terrorists detained by US forces, requiring military monitoring of all interrogations, where previously the CIA and foreign officials could question them without such oversight.
And in 2007 he recommended an end to a database, TALON, meant to keep tabs on suspected terrorists, but was sharply criticised for keeping information on peace activists.
After leaving the Air Force, Clapper worked as a private-sector consultant and served on the Downing Assessment Task Force that investigated the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex that housed US military personnel in Saudi Arabia.
In September 2001, he became the first civilian head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) that collects and analyses data from commercial and government satellites or aircraft, among other sources.
Under his command, NGA was among the US intelligence agencies that supported charges that then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had run programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Published in the Express Tribune, June 6th, 2010.
President Barack Obama on Saturday nominated retired air force lieutenant-general James Clapper for the slot of Director of National Intelligence.
Clapper, whose nomination would require US Senate approval, would take over from Dennis Blair, who stepped down in May. The retired lieutenant-general is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who champions using people to gather raw intelligence.
Clapper currently serves as the Pentagon’s intelligence chief, a job to which he was nominated in 2007 by then-president George W Bush.
The retired general has also served as director of the Defence Intelligence Agency under former president Bill Clinton.
Clapper retired from the US Air Force in 1995 after a 32-year career in which he held senior intelligence jobs during the first Gulf War as well as in US forces in Korea, the US Pacific Command, and the Strategic Command in charge of US nuclear weapons, space operations, and intelligence efforts.
He has also reportedly pushed for greater Pentagon control over the treatment of suspected terrorists detained by US forces, requiring military monitoring of all interrogations, where previously the CIA and foreign officials could question them without such oversight.
And in 2007 he recommended an end to a database, TALON, meant to keep tabs on suspected terrorists, but was sharply criticised for keeping information on peace activists.
After leaving the Air Force, Clapper worked as a private-sector consultant and served on the Downing Assessment Task Force that investigated the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers complex that housed US military personnel in Saudi Arabia.
In September 2001, he became the first civilian head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) that collects and analyses data from commercial and government satellites or aircraft, among other sources.
Under his command, NGA was among the US intelligence agencies that supported charges that then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had run programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Published in the Express Tribune, June 6th, 2010.