Panetta is an ideologue and just another Clinton holdover. He's last person we need in a job that demands a tough, pragmatic, problem-solver with the know-how and intelligence connections and insights to serve us well during what promises to be a very challenging time for America on the foreign policy front.

Frankly, I think Feinstein herself would have been a better choice. Her tenure on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence speaks highly and her many years in leadership positions in the Senate have given her the experience that will we key to success in this position.

Panetta is a fish out of water here. Bad choice for Obama.

Yes, Panetta is a Clinton holdover, one that I'm not particularly happy with--I think there are too many nominees from the Clinton administration in Obama's Cabinet choices. Nevertheless, I do not work in intelligence, therefore, I will abstain from stating I know best the qualities of the person to head the CIA. If that agency is as dysfunctional as the rest of the Bush administration, then what may be needed (as the LAT indicates) is someone who has good managerial skills rather than a spy background. Years in the military didn't work so well for the Army guys when it came to executing the war in Iraq, now did it? They're the ones who fired all their Arabic translators because they happened to be gay--talk about your poor decisions. But, I digress.

We'll have to agree to disagree with your estimation of Feinstein's suitability for chief of spooks. She caves every time the chips are down, and cowers every time principled decision-making is necessary. She's a DINO--she's shown that time and again over her last 6 years in the Senate and her support of Mukasey was, for me, the last straw.

What she should have done is work behind the scenes to air her disapproval. I suspect a lot of Democrats are now feeling emboldened to open their mouths indiscriminately with this increased majority, where before (in 2006 and prior), they were still sucking up to Mitch McConnell and his thugs. One lesson the last 8 years taught is that you don't give Republicans any ammunition to use against you. She's showing everyone her cards, and it appears to be ego-driven--that's stupid, IMO.

It appears my conjecture may not be too far off the mark. After writing the above, I decided to do a little more searching on the topic and found this little tidbit. Glenn Greenwald opines on Feinstein’s complaint, and that of Jay Rockefeller’s here http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/05/olc/index.html. There may be some fear behind the overt disagreement on the part of the two Senators, because they aided and abetted Bush when the American people were screaming for a return to the rule of law. Time will tell.

I hate to repeatedly quote from the same source, but this opinion piece pretty much sums up how I feel about Feinstein, and why.
I don't think she's an expert on intelligence--in fact her gullibility proves otherwise. She only wants to hold onto power.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/23/feinstein/

And apparently, the fracas over Panetta's nomination may in fact be a result of power struggles http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/wyden_tipped_to_panetta_by_transition_before_feins.php
despite Feinstein's attempt to backtrack once Obama called her to calm her down.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/01/feinstein_on_panetta.php

Laura Rozen has some good comments on the nomination from some people in the know.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/node/14914

The prediction is that Panetta will probably be confirmed. Too bad. I believe in recycling and all, but this non-stop parade of ex-Clinton staffers is getting ridiculous.

I agree with Mongo. We need more of an intelligence professional and less of a politician for this critical post. Bin Laden and his cronies are still alive and well and would like nothing more than to hit us hard during the early stages of a new presidency to make their mark.

Mongo=Clinton Recycler,

Mukasey had an intelligence background and yet bin Laden and his cronies have not been found, dead or alive. Something tells me that perhaps he suffers from the same thing Brownie did. The last thing one can accuse Panetta of is incompetence.

Helen,

I agree with you that Panetta is no doubt a competent politician. My point, however, was that we need less of a politician and more of an intelligence expert to head the CIA at this critical time in our history.

It's true that bin Laden has not been found, but neither George Bush nor Bill Clinton can claim victory in cracking this nut, can they? Actually, Clinton had the opportunity to take him out on his watch but (due to a clear case of misjudgment) failed to act. Sounds kind of a Monicaesque to me.

Oh well, we'll see how the rest of the Clinton, er, Obama, choices turn out.

Mongo,

Comment was from me, not Helen.
At any rate, is that what Bush and his followers are going to do for the next umpteen years, blame Clinton for not getting bin Laden first? Wow, pretty lame, especially given that the Republican Congress in power during Clinton's administration blasted him for every anti-terrorist move he made.

But, I find that it's typically a Republican trait to blame someone else and not take responsibility for one's own failures and bad judgement.

Gee, Bush would probably blame the people Madoff suckered out of their retirement funds for being stupid if he thought that would work!

Kara,

Lame argument, you say? There's across-the-board agreement that the CIA had bin Laden in its cross-hairs during Clinton's watch and all they needed was for him to give them the green light to take him out. However, the guy backed down.

Why was that, I wonder? Must have been the political repercussions predicted by one of his focus groups. Now we've got the wife in there as Secretary of State. Wonderful. More decisions by focus groups, I'm sure.

At least Bush was willing to take the heat for some of his decisions (however wrongly conceived).

I don't know where you're getting your information, Mongo, as you provide no sources for your opinions, but here's a former NSC Senior Director's take on Clinton "backing down".

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2003/sep/22/20030922-090026-8355r/

Here you go Kara (from a 2001 LA Times article authored by a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations on his firsthand account of Clinton's bin Laden failures):

December 5, 2001
Talk about it E-mail story Print

Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
* Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn't respond.

Times Headlines


The U.S. Can't Allow Justice to Be Another War Casualty

Ghost of a Tribunal Should Haunt Ashcroft

Bush Was Right to Abandon Treaty

Culture Shock

Hate Hits the Mainstream

more >

Subscribe
By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.

I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.

From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.

The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.

As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.

Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.

The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to "baby-sit" him--monitoring all his activities and associates.

But Saudi officials didn't want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.

In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.

Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden's personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.

Some of these men are now among the FBI's 22 most-wanted terrorists.

The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim's bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.

Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese.

But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan's religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan's intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.

Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan's data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they'd get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries--ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.

And that was not the end of it. In July 2000--three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen--I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States' closest Arab allies--an ally whose name I am not free to divulge--approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.

The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden's extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family--Clintonian diplomacy at its best.

Clinton's failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger's assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.

*

Mansoor Ijaz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company.

For information about reprinting this article, go to http://www.lats.com/rights/

a d v e r t i s i n g

Careerbuilder

Apartments.com

Not a credible source. My understanding from reading others' work is that no one from the Sudan was considered credible with regard to terrorism (not too surprising, considering their regime).

OK, I quote a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations and you quote a former member of the National Security Council.

So, what makes my source less credible than your's again?