{"id":1602,"date":"2013-05-28T13:47:42","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T19:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/?p=1602"},"modified":"2013-05-28T13:47:42","modified_gmt":"2013-05-28T19:47:42","slug":"in-terror-shift-obama-took-a-long-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/in-terror-shift-obama-took-a-long-path\/","title":{"rendered":"In Terror Shift, Obama Took a Long Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Peter Baker, The New York Times
\nclick here for original article<\/a><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 The pivot in counterterrorism policy thatPresident Obama<\/a>\u00a0announced last week<\/a>\u00a0was nearly two years in the making, but perhaps the most critical moment came last spring during a White House meeting as he talked about the future of the nation\u2019s long-running terrorism war. Underlying the discussion was a simple fact: It was an election year. And Mr. Obama might lose.<\/p>\n

\n
For nearly four years, the president had waged a relentless war from the skies against\u00a0<\/span>Al Qaeda<\/a>\u00a0and its allies, and he trusted that he had found what he considered a reasonable balance even if his critics did not see it that way. But now, he told his aides, he wanted to institutionalize what in effect had been an ad hoc war, effectively shaping the parameters for years to come \u201cwhether he was re-elected or somebody else became president,\u201d as one aide said.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Ultimately, he would decide to write a new playbook that would scale back the use of drones, target only those who really threatened the United States, eventually get the\u00a0C.I.A.<\/a>out of the targeted killing business and, more generally, begin moving the United States past the \u201cperpetual war\u201d it had waged since Sept. 11, 2001. Whether the policy shifts will actually accomplish that remains to be seen, given vague language and compromises forced by internal debate, but they represent an effort to set the rules even after he leaves office.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got this technology, and we\u2019re not going to be the only ones to use it,\u201d said a senior White House official who, like others involved, declined to be identified talking about internal deliberations. \u201cWe have to set standards so it doesn\u2019t get abused in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

While part of the re-evaluation was aimed at the next president, it was also about Mr. Obama\u2019s own legacy. What became an exercise lasting months, aides said, forced him to confront his deep conflicts as commander in chief: the Nobel Peace Prize winner with a \u201ckill list,\u201d the antiwar candidate turned war president, the avowed champion of transparency ordering operations over secret battlegrounds. He wanted to be known for healing the rift with the Muslim world, not raining down death from above.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, aides said, Mr. Obama spent more time on the subject than on any other national security issue, including the civil war in Syria. The speech he would eventually deliver at the National Defense University became what one aide called \u201ca window into the presidential mind\u201d as Mr. Obama essentially thought out loud about the trade-offs he sees in confronting national security threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmericans are deeply ambivalent about war,\u201d the president said in his speech, and he seemed to be talking about himself as well. Mr. Obama said the seeming precision and remote nature of modern warfare can \u201clead a president and his team to view drone strikes as a cure-all for terrorism,\u201d and it was not hard to imagine which president he had in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must define the nature and scope of this struggle,\u201d Mr. Obama said, \u201cor else it will define us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a sense, that had already happened to Mr. Obama. Somehow he had gone from the candidate who criticized what he saw as President George W. Bush\u2019s excesses to the president who expanded the drone program his predecessor had left him. The killing he authorized in September 2011 of\u00a0Anwar al-Awlaki<\/a>, an American citizen tied to terrorist attacks, brought home the disparity between how he had envisioned his presidency and what it had become. Suddenly, a liberal Democratic president was being criticized by his own political base for waging what some called an illegal war and asserting unchecked power.<\/p>\n

The Awlaki strike also killed another American, Samir Khan, who officials say was not intentionally targeted. A subsequent strike killed Mr. Awlaki\u2019s 16-year-old American son, a death that officials say was an accident. A furor over the American deaths convinced Mr. Obama that it was time to lay out clearer standards and practices for drone warfare.<\/p>\n

Under the stewardship of\u00a0John O. Brennan<\/a>, then the president\u2019s counterterrorism adviser, officials spent months discussing how to be more transparent about a program that was still officially secret and how to define its limits. After last spring\u2019s discussion with the president, Mr. Brennan began a more intensive, formalized interagency process to rewrite the rules. He also took a first step in\u00a0explaining the administration\u2019s drone policy to the public<\/a>\u00a0with a speech in which he said strikes targeted only those who posed \u201ca significant threat to U.S. interests.\u201d But even then he did not directly acknowledge American involvement in Mr. Awlaki\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n

In seemingly endless meetings, including a dozen or more with the president, Mr. Brennan and other administration officials grappled with the issue. Concluding that Al Qaeda\u2019s core leadership had been decimated, some officials wanted tighter restrictions on the use of drone strikes, but the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon balked. The C.I.A.\u2019s counterterrorism center resisted another proposal to take its drones away and put them under Pentagon control.<\/p>\n

While the agencies argued, Mr. Obama focused on winning a second term, boasting about the same aggressive approach he was privately rethinking. \u201cAsk Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top Al Qaeda leaders who\u2019ve been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement,\u201d he said in response to campaign criticism.<\/p>\n

\n

Days after his victory, he told his staff he wanted to conclude the review with a major speech, although there would no longer be pressure to complete it before the next inauguration, since he would be staying. Around the White House, it became known as Archives 2, a reference to\u00a0the president\u2019s May 2009 speech<\/a>\u00a0at the National Archives on counterterrorism issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he said repeatedly is he felt when he took office it wasn\u2019t clear how we used this tool,\u201d said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser assigned to write the speech. \u201cPart of this frankly is laying out for the American people but also for the next president: here\u2019s how we do this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first outlines of the speech came together in February. But there were critical debates to resolve. As Mr. Brennan departed to become C.I.A. director, his replacement, Lisa Monaco, and the top White House national security lawyer, Avril D. Haines, ushered the process to a conclusion.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the president and his team decided to tighten the standard for striking targets outside overt war zones. Instead of being authorized for any \u201csignificant threat to U.S. interests,\u201d drone strikes would be used only in cases of a \u201ccontinuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.\u201d They would also be limited to cases with a \u201cnear certainty\u201d of avoiding civilian casualties.<\/p>\n

The C.I.A.\u2019s opposition to shifting responsibility for drones entirely to the Pentagon resulted in a compromise: There would be a transition period for the program in Pakistan, which would be reviewed every six months to determine if it was ready to be moved to military control. Administration officials suggest that the transfer of the Pakistan drone program may coincide with the withdrawal of combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hawks may be grumbling about it, but that\u2019s to be expected,\u201d said a senior government official who supported the strategy shift. \u201cThis is a big change. But no one is screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hawks proposed a change of their own, suggesting,\u00a0as The Daily Beast has reported<\/a>, that the president leave individual strike decisions in authorized areas outside overt war zones to the Pentagon and the C.I.A. But the White House rejected that. Mr. Obama felt those decisions were the president\u2019s responsibility: he wanted to keep his own finger on the trigger.<\/p>\n

All of that was codified in a Presidential Policy Guidance that remains classified. To address drone policy, though, meant owning up to the killings of Mr. Awlaki and other Americans, officials concluded. The C.I.A. and others resisted, but Mr. Obama decided to declassify information about not just Mr. Awlaki\u2019s killing, but the killings of three other Americans who officials say had not been intentionally targeted.<\/p>\n

Mr. Obama was also interested in instituting an independent review of how and when drone strikes would be conducted. Multiple papers were prepared and multiple options evaluated. Among them was a special court to oversee targeted killings, but the discussion became tied up in knots about how it would work. Would a judge have to approve such strikes in advance or after the fact? What about an independent board within the executive branch instead? Administration lawyers argued against surrendering presidential authority, and defense policy makers argued against giving up operational control.<\/p>\n

That proved to be a debate Mr. Obama could not resolve. In his speech, he invited Congress to come up with ideas. He also thought it was time to review the authorization of force that Congress passed in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, and that has been the legal foundation for the war on terrorism. But after a two-hour discussion just days before the speech, he could not decide exactly how to do that, either.<\/p>\n

In the midst of the White House debate, two bombs went off at the\u00a0Boston Marathon<\/a>\u00a0in an attack attributed to two ethnic Chechens living legally in the United States, reaffirming the continuing threat of terrorism. For Mr. Obama, it was another pivot point. The Boston attack, he thought, typified the new terrorist threat more than 11 years after Sept. 11, 2001: smaller-scale attacks that have fewer casualties but are harder to stop and often conducted by people radicalized while already living in the United States.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of May, Mr. Obama was given a first draft of the speech but tossed it out and wrote out a detailed outline by hand over several pages. He expanded it from drones to include a renewal of his failed promise to close the prison at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, Cuba. He also wanted fresh emphasis on nonmilitary tools like diplomacy, foreign aid and help for other countries dealing with threats inside their borders, although he made sure the word \u201cpatiently\u201d was added to reflect the difficulty.<\/p>\n

Some Pentagon and State Department officials learned only the day before the speech that Mr. Obama would lift his moratorium on repatriating Guant\u00e1namo detainees to Yemen and appoint a new official at the Defense Department to oversee transfer efforts.<\/p>\n

Mr. Obama\u2019s eventual speech, at 59 minutes one of the longest of his presidency other than a\u00a0State of the Union address<\/a>, reflected the process that developed it. Even as he set new standards, a debate broke out about what they actually meant and what would actually change. For now, officials said, \u201csignature strikes\u201d targeting groups of unidentified armed men presumed to be extremists will continue in the Pakistani tribal areas.<\/p>\n

Even as he talked about transparency, he never uttered the word \u201cC.I.A.\u201d or acknowledged he was redefining its role. He made no mention that a drone strike had killed an American teenager in error. While he pledged again to close the Guant\u00e1namo prison, he offered little reason to think he might be more successful this time.<\/p>\n

Yet even the promise of change left some people scathingly critical. \u201cAt the end of the day,\u201d said Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, \u201cthis is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine, making such a speech at a time when our homeland is trying to be attacked literally every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Peter Baker, The New York Times click here for original article WASHINGTON \u2014 The pivot in counterterrorism policy thatPresident Obama\u00a0announced last week\u00a0was nearly two years in the making, but perhaps the most critical moment came last spring during a White House meeting as he talked about the future of the nation\u2019s long-running terrorism war. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/JP-OBAMA-1-popup.jpg?fit=650%2C433&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1604,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1602\/revisions\/1604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peaceeconomyproject.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}