Obama's controversial pick for intel post departs

by Frank James

Charles Freeman, a former diplomat who was chosen to serve in the new position in the Obama Administration of chair of the National Intelligence Council, is withdrawing from the position, according to reports.

Freeman has criticized the Israeli government's treatment of Arabs and some of his opponents said he was too close to Saudi Arabia where he once served as U.S. ambassador.

Here's the Associated Press report:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman has given up his new post as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

His withdrawal comes just hours after National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said at a congressional hearing that he was standing behind Freeman as chairman of the council, which analyzes national security issues.

Freeman has aggressively criticized the Israeli government, the war in Iraq and the war on terror in general. The National Intelligence Council draws information from all U.S. intelligence agencies.

Freeman is frequently described as a foreign-policy realist, one who doesn't believe that U.S. foreign policy to be an extension of American values and morality driven, for instance, by efforts to promote democracy abroad. Rather, he is said to foreign policy in the hard-headed way similar to Henry Kissinger in which the U.S. sometimes deals with unpalatable regimes to further its interests.

Andrew Sullivan has an excellent analysis of the controversy surrounding Freeman's selection to serve in the Obama Administration and what it may portend for the direction of Obama's foreign policy. He wrote it before Freeman withdrew but it's still worth reading.

Speaking of Freeman, Sullivan writes:

You'd think someone with more cold-blooded views would be a useful, even refreshing, voice for a president eager to reboot American foreign policy after Bush. He's just one voice - and he also has a coherent view of what has gone wrong with US foreign policy in the past few years. In the autumn of 2007 he said: "In retrospect, Al-Qaeda has played us with the finesse of a matador exhausting a great bull by guiding it into unproductive lunges at the void behind his cape.

"By invading Iraq, we transformed an intervention in Afghanistan most Muslims had supported into what looks to them like a wider war against Islam. We destroyed the Iraqi state and catalysed anarchy, sectarian violence, terrorism and civil war in that country.

"Meanwhile, we embraced Israel's enemies as our own; they responded by equating Americans with Israelis as their enemies. We abandoned the role of Middle East peacemaker to back Israel's efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoised Arab populations."

In Europe this view is hardly extreme. In America it is often regarded as self-evidently antisemitic. Freeman has been far from diplomatic in some of his statements, and some offence seems inevitable. But if the US is to reset its relations with the Muslim world and reframe a relationship with Israel in a grand bargain in the Middle East, this kind of approach should certainly be in the mix..."

Then, discussing what he suggests is the consensus among U.S. policymakers that the U.S. can't ever be seen as letting too much light emerge between the U.S. and Israel Sullivan writes:

... Freeman's appointment would put a tiny crack in that consensus. It would imply that the US-Israel relationship might be balanced by other key relationships in the region, or that Israel might be asked - or even pressured - to take risks for a broader peace that would benefit the US. It would imply that while American and Israeli interests often overlap in the region, they are not always and everywhere identical and that a healthier understanding of this might emerge that could benefit both nations.

Well, we'll see. I can't say I am optimistic. Obama is being asked to transform America's relations with the Muslim world while not moving an inch from Bush's Israel policy. That's basically impossible - and there is a price to be paid for pointing that out. Chas Freeman may well be forced to pay it.

As ensuring events have proved, Sullivan was right to have his concerns. Meanwhile, Freeman's departure has ended the concerns of Jewish groups who lobbied against him.

Here's a statement from the Republican Jewish Coalition:

RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks issued the following statement:

"This news will come as a relief to the large and growing group of Americans who have grown concerned about the judgment and process that led to the selection of this flawed appointment."

Brooks noted that "it is unfortunate that important questions went unaddressed by the Obama White House on those occassions they were raised. It's troubling how much effort it took to get them to face up to this problem."

"Membership organizations like the Republican Jewish Coalition publicly challenged Chas Freeman's suitability for this post. And Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle weighed in with concerns.

Nine representatives sent a letter to the inspector general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, requesting an investigation into Freeman's ties with Saudi Arabia.

The letter was written by Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), and signed by seven other Republicans, including Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), as well as one Democrat.

Separately, Democratic Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) sent a similar letter to the inspector general.

Kirk and Israel later asked the inspector general to expand his investigation to include Freeman's connections with a Chinese government-owned oil company.

And today, Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) confronted DNI Admiral Dennis Blair with his concerns during a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"We are grateful that Members of Congress in both parties distinguished themselves during this episode and placed principle over partisanship," Brooks concluded.