Did Obama Aide Admiral Dennis Blair Lie to Congress?

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Did Obama Aide Admiral Dennis Blair Lie to Congress?

President-elect Obama is expected to name his intelligence team today: Leon Panetta for the CIA, John Brennan as a key White House adviser, and Admiral Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence. Blair, as Allan Nairn reported on Democracy Now!, was implicated in backing the perpetrators of church massacres in East Timor in 1999. Award-winning investigative reporter Allan Nairn reveals new information that indicates he may have lied to Congress.

President-elect Obama is expected to name his intelligence team today, Leon Panetta for the CIA, John Brennan as a key White House adviser, and Admiral Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence. Is this change? John Brennan was dropped as a candidate for CIA due to accusations of support for torture and extraordinary rendition.

Obama is now selecting Brennan for a position not requiring congressional confirmation. Admiral Blair, as Allan Nairn reported on Democracy Now on Tuesday and Wednesday, was implicated in backing the perpetrators of church massacres in East Timor in 1999. Award-winning investigative reporter Allan Nairn joins us on the phone now with more information on potential new problems for Blair.

Allan Nairn, Award-winning journalist who has reported from Indonesia for years. In 1999, he broke the story on Dennis Blair’s secret meeting with Indonesian generals to affirm US support for their violent crackdown on East Timorese.

(Video, audio at link, no transcript yet)

My note: The incident Allan refers to is Blair's March 3 1999 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee where Blair misrepresented the actions of the Indonesian military in order that Congress restore military aid to the Indonesian government. Blair represented that abuses committed by the Indonesian military were by individuals and not the policy of its US trained military leadership -- much as Rumsfeld tried to represent Abu Graib to Congress.

Blair was in general supportive of Gen. Wiranto before, during and after the Wiranto led massacre of the East Timorese.

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1. This is another reason Obama should steer clear of so many of Clinton's people. They weren't ALWAYS

doing the right thing on foreign policy the way so many Democrats claim or prefer to believe.

Many of Clinton's decisions were heavily influenced by WWKD? What Would Kissinger Do? Just as Poppy Bush set it up.

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3. The military leadership Blair sided with against Congress

cemented into place the political regime that still controls Indonesia. Obama knows what those people are. Amy said he wrote about that period in his first book?

[waiting for hope]

2. Link to video of Allan Nairn discussing

Admiral Blair:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x257459

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4. K&R for pulling the covers on a bad choice.

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5. It's interesting that we heard so much about Leon Panetta's lack of

operational experience but little or nothing about the proposed Director of National Intelligence and less about how John Brennan was going to be a high level advisor who got to avoid the confirmation process.

Is the hearing over?

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6. Michael Scheuer & Ray McGovern on Admiral Blair...

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/jan-june09/intelteam_01-06.html

"...Dennis Blair's career history

JUDY WOODRUFF: Let me ask you both about Dennis Blair, who is reported to be Mr. Obama's choice to head -- to become the new director of national intelligence. Your take on him, Mr. Scheuer?

MICHAEL SCHEUER: I think, you know, for the first time and since Vietnam, America has a number of two- and three-star generals, who are serving at the moment, who have had combat experience recently, who know how the intelligence community interrelates with the military, both the pluses and the minuses, to bring an admiral who last served in the Pacific out of retirement seems to me to be ignoring a great deal of expertise that's available in the still-serving military. So I would think that, with all respect for Admiral Blair, there was a lot of people who would have been a better choice.


JUDY WOODRUFF: And we should say he will be the boss of the CIA director.

What about Dennis Blair?

RAY MCGOVERN: Nominally. Well, I know very little about him. He has a good reputation as a strategic thinker, but when he was CINCPAC, the chief of the Pacific forces, he actually coddled the Indonesian military when they brutally suppressed people in East Timor, who were striving for their rights.

There's documentary proof out of the State Department and the NSC that he pretty much winked at the instructions he had to get those generals to ease off the torture and the massacre that they did. And he just went ahead and coddled them and gave them to believe that they could go ahead and keep doing that..."

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8. I believe this is a picture of Gen. Wiranto with Cohen.

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9. Thanks...and we need to remember that Blair is Panetta's boss. n/t

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7. Dennis Blair Wrong Choice for Director of National Intelligence

http://www.opednews.com/populum/print_friendly.php?p=Dennis-Blair-Wrong-Choice-by-Andrew-Silver-081220-186.html

"Admiral Blair encouraged and supported the Commander of the Indonesian Military during the massacres in East Timor in 1999. Given the CIA's long history of supporting massacres, torture, and efforts to overthrow legitimate governments around the world, a person who does not have the moral sense to understand that this is wrong should not be director of national intelligence. Why does Barack Obama not consult distinguished intelligence veterans who have been right all along, like Richard Clarke or Ray McGovern?


...Regardless of who is really in charge of intelligence operations, because of the record of the CIA over the past 60 years in training and supporting torturers and death squads, and in fomenting rebellions against Democratic governments, in a dozen or more countries from Guatemala to Angola, it behooves the president to find persons to head national intelligence and the CIA who at least have a moral compass, and who can recognize that promoting torture and death squads, or rebellion against peaceful, legitimate governments is not in the national security interest of this country..."

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10. Admiral Blair at no point told Wiranto to stop the militia operation (Nation, 1999)

Article hosted at East Timor Action Network:

"Admiral Blair at no point told Wiranto to stop the militia operation, going the other way by inviting him to be his personal guest in Hawaii. Blair told Wiranto that the United States would initiate this new riot-control training for the Indonesian armed forces. This was quite significant, because it would be the first new US training program for the Indonesian military since 1992. Although State Department officials had been assured in writing that only police and no soldiers would be part of this training, Blair told Wiranto that, yes, soldiers could be included. So although Blair was sent in with the mission of telling Wiranto to shut the militias down, he did the opposite."

http://www.etan.org/et99b/september/26-30/27nairn.htm

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11. Wow this is bad and Brennan is

still in!!!!!!!! So much b.s. about Obama listening. He's as wiley as they come. It's going to be a rough four years for those paying attention. I think I knew this the second I heard RAHM as his best man, and Hillary as SOS pick. What it meant to me that all of Obama's talk on ending the war was just TALK. All his differences with Hillary were just political theater. My husband called him a crypto Republican last night-my husband who donated and was his big fan and now that's what he's thinking. Of course the blush was off the rose long ago for him-when Obama voted for FISA and I said just give him a chance until he's elected. My husband main point was WHY? He didn't have to vote for FISA, and he sure as hell can not appoint these people. Are there no people with out blood on their hands??

Just when I had some hope that Panetta was so anti-torture. And that speech Obama gave today about these picks-so bland in his denouncement of torture-he can't even say the word-instead it's "practices". Ah thanks. Wouldn't want anyone prosecuted or having to admit it! And just saw Brennan talking to PBS in 2002 about what a great practice rendition was. Out of his own damn lips.

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13. In the context of US history, this kind of activity is not new

and is not limited to any one political party. If we can use this information to keep pushing the new president to the righter side of human rights, that would be a good outcome.

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12. Indonesia: Justice Denied in East Timor Church Massacre

Indonesia: Justice Denied in East Timor Church Massacre

Acquittal of Five Officials Highlights Need for U.N. Mechanism
March 10, 2004


The acquittal of five Indonesian officials implicated in the 1999 massacre of civilians in an East Timor church underscores the need for a United Nations mechanism to bring to justice those responsible for atrocities in East Timor, Human Rights Watch said today.

Last week, the Supreme Court upheld the August 2002 decision by Indonesia’s ad hoc court on East Timor to acquit the five defendants. The five were accused of involvement in the September 6, 1999, Suai church massacre, during which up to 200 civilians, including three priests, were killed.

“The Indonesian judicial system has failed to prosecute the East Timor cases seriously, and now the highest court in the land has applied the final coat of whitewash,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “Victims and family members still await justice for this massacre.”

The five defendants were Indonesian military officers Lieutenant Colonel Liliek Kusardiyanto, Captain Ahmad Syamsudin, and Lieutenant Sugito; a police official, Colonel Gatot Subiaktoro, and a district head, Herman Sedyono. The five were also among 16 men named in an April 2, 2003, indictment filed by the U.N Serious Crimes Unit located in Dili, East Timor.

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2004/03/10/indonesia-justice-denied-east-timor-church-massacre

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14. K&R for "More of the same, failed policies"

I saw this earlier on Balantz's post. The fact that we are supposed to swallow a supporter of torture and a supporter of massacres is pukeworthy. There were plenty of other people to pick from.

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15. Link - Democracy now

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/9/did_obama_aide_admiral_dennis_blair