John O. Brennan

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John O. Brennan (2012)

John Owen Brennan (born September 22, 1955 in Jersey City ) is a former high-ranking American government official. He was director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from March 2013 to January 20, 2017 ; Previously, he was head of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) (2004–2005) and anti-terrorism advisor to US President Barack Obama ( Special Advisor to the President for Counterterrorism Affairs ) (2009–2013).

Life

The son of Irish immigrants from County Roscommon grew up in North Bergen ( New Jersey on). He studied at Fordham University , where he received his BA in Political Science in 1977 . He spent a year abroad at the American University in Cairo . He received a Master of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980 . He is fluent in Arabic .

Brennan subsequently worked for the CIA for a long time, including as an analyst for the Middle East and South Asia as well as in Saudi Arabia. In 1999 he became chief of staff of the then CIA director George Tenet . In 2001, Brennan became the CIA deputy director. From 2004 to 2005 he served as the director of the National Counterterrorism Center .

In 2005 Brennan left the civil service and temporarily switched to the private sector. On January 20, 2009, he succeeded Kenneth L. Wainstein as Homeland Security Advisor . His official title was "Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counter-Terrorism and Assistant to the President".

Due to the offensive carried out by the investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald against Brennan's candidacy for the leadership positions as Director of Central Intelligence and Director of National Intelligence , the latter finally gave up. Brennan was accused supporters of the Bush - Cheney -Regierung after 9/11 legalized interrogation methods of the " tougher questioning techniques to be" (Engl .: "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"), including the waterboarding (see Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse ; CIA Torture Report 2014 ). The "techniques" are often referred to as torture and attracted severe criticism, especially since the government had always maintained that they did not torture and tried to present the 13 mostly combined and long-term "techniques" with legal opinions, some of which were grotesque. that they did not fall under the ban on torture . When President Obama offered Brennan the same position in early 2013 , he did not renounce.

In June 2011, Brennan presented a new anti-terror strategy and also set up the associated disposition matrix . In a speech at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on April 30, 2012, he defended the targeted killing (English. Targeted Killing ) selected Al-Qaeda -members worldwide. It is not about retaliatory strikes, but about those involved in planned attacks. Following his speech, he stated:

“We only decide to take that action if there is no other option available, if there is not the option of capture, if the local government will not take action, if we cannot do something that will prevent that attack from taking place, and the only available option is taking that individual off of the battlefield, and we're going to do it in a way that gives us the confidence that we are not going to, in fact, inflict collateral damage. "

His claim at the time that no civilians were killed in attacks by “killer drones ” is contested by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism .

On September 16, 2011, he gave a speech at Harvard Law School on the balance between national security and observance of values ​​and laws. The top priority therefore remains the protection of the American people. Furthermore, all operations, including covert ones , must comply with US values ​​and laws. He named the geographical definition of a conflict as a point of contention. The British lawyer Daniel Bethlehem sums up the positions as follows:

“The US sees the conflict against Al Qaeda as without geographic limit, even if it is subject to other constraints. The self-defense gateway has already been passed. Key allies see it differently, as a conflict geographically limited to "hot '" battlefields. "

“The US sees the conflict against Al Qaeda as free of geographical borders, although it is subject to other restrictions. The self-defense threshold has already been exceeded. Important allies see this differently than a conflict that is geographically limited to "hot" battlefields. "

CIA director

Seal of the Central Intelligence Agency, svg

On January 7, 2013, President Obama nominated Brennan for the post of CIA director . On March 8, 2013, US Vice President Joe Biden took the oath of office from him in the Roosevelt Room of the White House .

In March 2014, Dianne Feinstein accused the CIA of removing documents from a computer used by the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate allegations of torture. Brennan initially denied the computer break-in, but was then forced to admit that his CIA staff had broken into the computers of the Senate staff department.

In April 2014, Russian media revealed, citing senior officials in the Kiev security apparatus, that Brennan had been in Kiev on April 12 and 13, and that he had also met and discussed with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his deputy Vitaly Yarema. The intelligence consultations were confirmed by Jay Carney , a White House press secretary. Russian media saw a connection with Brennan's visit and a special operation by the security forces with military helicopters and tanks against rebelling eastern Ukrainians , with a focus on the city of Slovyansk, announced shortly afterwards by the Ukrainian Interior Ministry . The CIA denied these connections. On May 4, German media reported that the American services CIA and FBI were advising the Ukrainian interim government on how to deal with insurgents in eastern Ukraine.

He was in office until Donald Trump took office in January 2017. His successor was Mike Pompeo , who was nominated on January 23, 2017 .

Criticism of President Trump

On May 23, 2017, Brennan told the US House of Representatives ' Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence , which was supposed to investigate alleged illegal collaboration between Donald Trump's campaign team and Russia prior to the 2016 election: “ It should be clear to everyone that Russia brazenly interfered in the 2016 [presidential] election process. ”(, In German:“ It should be clear to everyone that Russia shamelessly interfered in the [presidential] election in 2016. ”).

A few days after far-right demonstrations in Charlottesville in August 2017, Brennan wrote an open letter to President Trump. Trump's words and the attitude they represent are "a national shame"; in his words, President Trump is putting “national security and our common future at great risk”.

In February 2018 Brennan was the chief analyst for National Security at the TV - Network NBC and the news channel MSNBC set based in New York City.

On April 13, 2018, Brennan tweeted to President Trump: “ Your kakistocracy is collapsing after its lamentable journey. As the greatest nation history has known, we have the opportunity to emerge from this nightmare stronger & more committed to ensuring a better life for all Americans, including those you have so tragically deceived. “Trump had previously insulted James Comey, who was dismissed by him in 2017, in a few tweets.

After President Trump announced on May 20, 2018 that he would have the Justice Department investigate whether the FBI had interfered in his election campaign, Brennan wrote to Senator Mitch McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan : “ If Mr. Trump continues along this disastrous path, you will bear major responsibility for the harm done to our democracy. You do a great disservice to our Nation & the Republican Party if you continue to enable Mr. Trump's self-serving actions. ”

After Trump's participation in the NATO summit in July 2018, Brennan tweeted: “ It is in the interest of America's security if NATO leaders push back against the reckless behavior of Donald Trump, who is dangerously naive & grossly ignorant of how the world works. History inevitably will regard Trump as one of the most disastrous figures of the 21st century. ”

Brennan accused President Trump of "treason" after his press conference at the Helsinki summit on July 16, 2018 with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On August 15, 2018, US President Trump withdrew Brennan his security clearance . Brennan no longer has access to sensitive information. Former CIA directors and other senior US security officials usually keep their security clearances even after they are no longer in office.

literature

Web links

Commons : John O. Brennan  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ John O. Brennan. Director, Central Intelligence Agency. Central Intelligence Agency, accessed October 22, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b c Niall O'Dowd: John Brennan, son of Irish immigrants, now Obama's top gun . Irish Central. June 6, 2010. Retrieved October 31, 2010.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Amanda Erickson: Profiles: John O. Brennan . In: Who Runs Gov . The Washington Post. August 25, 2010. Archived from the original on May 6, 2011. Retrieved on May 19, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b c d Herb Jackson: North Bergen man is homeland security assistant for President Obama . In: The Bergen Record , December 5, 2009. Retrieved October 31, 2010. 
  5. ↑ James Gordon Meek: White House counterterror adviser John Brennan: Out of the shadows and into the spotlight , New York Daily News. January 9, 2010. 
  6. ↑ Annual Report To Congress On White House Office Staff (PDF; 172 kB) Executive Office of the President. July 1, 2009. Archived from the original on May 13, 2011. Retrieved May 19, 2011.
  7. ↑ Brennan Pulls Out Of Running For CIA Chief, Chides Liberal Blogs . Archived from the original on August 11, 2013. Retrieved on August 11, 2013.
  8. ↑ US government: Obama nominates Republicans to head Pentagon , Spiegel Online , January 7, 2013 (accessed January 7, 2013).
  9. ^ MacKenzie C. Babb, Presidential Adviser Announces New Counterterrorism Strategy - State Department, June 29, 2011; National Strategy for Counterterrorism ( Memento from July 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF), June 2011.
  10. ^ The Ethics and Efficacy of the President's Counterterrorism Strategy - Video and transcript
  11. ↑ Minutes: Gohmert (Texas) in the US House of Representatives February 6, 2013 quoted "The Wrong Man for the CIA" by Gregory Johnsen in the New York Times, November
  12. ↑ US claims of 'no civilian deaths' are untrue
  13. ^ Remarks of John O. Brennan: Strengthening our Security by Adhering to our Values ​​and Laws - Speech at Harvard Law School, September 16, 2011.
  14. ↑ Mopping up the Last War or Stumbling into the Next? , October 7, 2011.
  15. ↑ US government: Obama nominates Republicans to head the Pentagon . In: Spiegel Online . January 7, 2013.
  16. ↑ Statement on Intel Committee's CIA Detention, Interrogation Report - Press Release March 11, 2014.
  17. ↑ Ryan Teague Beckwith: 4 reasons the latest CIA revelation is serious  ( page no longer available , search in web archives ). @1@ 2Template: Dead Link / dfm.whittierdailynews.com In: Whittier Daily News. March 11, 2014.
  18. ↑ a b Gerald Sussman: Where America's Trolls Are Bred , reverse page , March 21, 2018.
  19. ^ André Eichhofer: Ukraine: How the CIA helps Kiev with secret information . In: The world . April 16, 2014.
  20. ↑ David Jackson: White House: Brennan was in Kiev this weekend . In: USA Today . April 14, 2014
  21. ^ Website of the RIA Novosti agency from April 14, 2014
  22. ↑ Detlef D. Pries: With one foot in the civil war - the ultimatum initially passed without consequences. In: New Germany . ag-friedensforschung.de, April 15, 2014, accessed on April 28, 2014 .
  23. ^ Fatal fire in Odessa - Yatsenjuk blames the police. In: n-tv . May 4, 2014, accessed May 5, 2014 .
  24. ↑ washingtonpost.com May 23, 2017: 5 moments that show Trump isn't about to get any help from the intelligence community
  25. ↑ Former CIA director slams Trump's 'despicable' comments in letter to CNN anchor
  26. ↑ FAZ.net August 17, 2017: Former CIA boss: Trump a "national disgrace"
  27. ↑ Ex-CIA director tears into Trump: 'Your kakistocracy is collapsing'.
  28. ↑ washingtonpost.com: Trump lambastes a former CIA director ahead of installation of a new one
  29. ↑ thehill.com: Ex-CIA Director: NATO leaders shoulderstand pushback against Trump's 'reckless behavior'.
  30. ↑ spiegel.de: Why Donald Trump is wrong.
  31. ↑ FAZ.net: Trump withdraws the security permit from the former CIA chief.
personal data
SURNAME Brennan, John O.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brennan, John Owen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American government official
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Jersey City , New Jersey