Dennis Blair | |
---|---|
3rd Director of National Intelligence | |
In office January 29, 2009 – May 28, 2010 | |
President | Barack Obama |
Deputy | David Gompert |
Preceded by | Mike McConnell |
Succeeded by | James Clapper |
Personal details | |
Born | Dennis Cutler Blair February 4, 1947 Kittery, Maine, U.S. |
Education | United States Naval Academy (BS) Worcester College, Oxford (MA) |
Military service | |
Allegiance | United States |
Branch/service | United States Navy |
Years of service | 1968–2002 |
Rank | Admiral |
Battles/wars | War on Terror |
Dennis Cutler Blair (born February 4, 1947)[1] is the former United States Director of National Intelligence and a retired United States Navy admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region.[2] Blair was a career officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the White House during the presidencies of both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Blair retired from the Navy in 2002 as an Admiral.[3] In 2009, Blair was selected as President Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence, but after a series of bureaucratic battles, he resigned on May 20, 2010.[3][4]
He currently serves as a member of the Energy Security Leadership Council of Securing America's Future Energy, and is on the boards of the Atlantic Council,[5] Freedom House, the National Bureau of Asian Research, and the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations.[2] He also serves as co-chair of the annual Pacific Energy Summit.[6]
He also serves as a senior advisor to Ron Wahid, Chairman of Arcanum, a global strategic intelligence company and subsidiary of Magellan Investment Holdings.[7]
Blair was born in Kittery, Maine, the son of Abbie Dora (née Ansel) and Captain Carvel Hall Blair.[8][9] He is a sixth-generation naval officer and the great-great-great-grandson of Confederate Chief Engineer William Price Williamson of North Carolina, who is credited with first suggesting that the hull of the USS Merrimack be used to build the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia.[10] He also counts portrait painter Charles Willson Peale and U.S. Attorney General William Wirt among his ancestors.[11]
Blair attended St. Andrew's School (1964) and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1968. The class of 1968 at the academy also included retired Admiral Michael Mullen, the 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Admiral Jay L. Johnson, former Senator James H. Webb, and retired General Michael Hagee, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.[12]
Dennis C. Blair became the third Director of National Intelligence (DNI) on January 29, 2009, after being nominated by newly inaugurated President Barack Obama.[34]
During his confirmation, Director Blair indicated he did not support a domestic intelligence agency separate from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[35] He also promised to end special interrogation regimes, believing the Intelligence Community must conduct analysis on opportunities as well as threats.[36][37][38][39]
In May 2009, Blair attempted to assert the DNI's role as the head of the Intelligence Community with a memo claiming authority to appoint CIA chiefs of station abroad. This was vehemently opposed by CIA Director Leon Panetta, who issued a memo of his own.[40]
Blair's two predecessors, Mike McConnell and John Negroponte, were both unable to bring this role under the auspices of the DNI, the authority to appoint chiefs of station having been the province of the CIA since 1947.[41] According to news reports, President Bush issued an executive order to give Blair his congressionally-mandated powers to force the CIA and other intelligence agencies to cooperate with his office. A number of government executives agreed that the DNI should not have to go to the President each time the DNI wants to implement guidance.[42] In late July 2009, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence backed Director Blair, asking the CIA to give "prompt adherence" to Blair's decision.[41]
However, on November 10, 2009, the White House decided in the CIA's favor, agreeing that the authority to appoint station chiefs overseas should remain with the CIA. Some intelligence experts believed this significantly weakened the DNI's authority, comparing the DNI to a DCI without an agency.[43] Senator Susan Collins of Maine expressed concerns during hearings over the botched 2009 Christmas terrorist attack that the White House had undermined the power of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence by siding with the CIA in turf disputes, specifically citing this disagreement over intelligence community appointees.[44][45][46]
In a January 2010 statement to lawmakers by Thomas Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, who led the 9/11 Commission Report, Kean and Hamilton urged Obama to be clear who was in charge and urged a strong DNI.[47] According to The Washington Post, a former Clinton administration official suggested scrapping the DNI position if Blair were removed.[48]
On February 3, 2010, as Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair testified before Congress, "If that direct action--we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that...I would rather go into details in closed session, Mr. Chairman, but we don't target people for free speech. We target them for taking action that threatens Americans or has resulted in it."[49][50][51] Blair also said: "Being a U.S. citizen will not spare an American from getting assassinated by military or intelligence operatives overseas if the individual is working with terrorists and planning to attack fellow Americans."[52]
On May 20, 2010, President Obama asked for Blair's resignation,[53] from his role as Director of National Intelligence which was tendered that day effective May 28.[54][55] There are conflicting reports as to why Blair was asked to resign.
On May 22, 2010, two days after the resignation was announced, U.S. officials leaked information to The New York Times stating that Blair's dismissal had been related to his continual pushing of a U.S.–French intelligence-sharing project "with other countries". Blair and Bernard Bajolet, intelligence advisor to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, had commenced negotiations between October and December 2009 on the pact. The treaty was to have been a legally binding reciprocal no-spying arrangement between France and the United States, whereby each country would take over operations for the other in their home-territory. Under the proposed treaty, U.S. operations in France would be run by French intelligence. This was to be a signed treaty arrangement, a more formal version than the UK–USA Security Agreement.[56] In the month before the treaty failure, President Sarkozy made a number of U.S. visits, the first visit was on March 31, 2010.[57] During the visit, Sarkozy was the first head of state invited by Obama to dine in the White House's private dining quarters.[58] Press releases from both governments made mention of the close relationship between the two heads of state.[59] Mr. Sarkozy was also in Washington for the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit from April 12–14, immediately prior to President Obama's rejection of the treaty produced by eight months of negotiations by Blair.
US officials claimed that the U.S.–France intelligence-sharing treaty had been rejected by President Obama, adding that DNI Blair's "continued pushing" for the pact after presidential rejection were grounds for his dismissal.[60] It was further claimed that President Sarkozy had been upset at the late-stage U.S. drawback in the deal. U.S. sources claimed that the treaty had been signed, despite U.S. claims that the treaty had been rejected by President Obama.
In an unusual response, the Palais de l'Elysee confirmed that such a treaty had been negotiated, adding that "we weren't the askers" in the deal, denying any French disappointment. French officials further specified that part of the U.S. offer to France comprised access to a "secure intelligence data and retrieval exchange system",[61] this being an in-progress U.S. acquisition under the auspices of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. French officials characterized the treaty as minor, stating, "nothing has changed in our relationship" in relation to the treaty failure and Blair's dismissal.[62] Officially, France denies conducting operations on U.S. soil.
Matthew Aid, an espionage historian, offered a different rationale for Blair's dismissal.
According to Aid, the White House's rejection of Blair's attempt to bring the appointment of station chiefs under the DNI's authority soured Blair's relationships with Panetta, despite a long personal friendship between the two, and Obama's Homeland Security Advisor, John Brennan, who had sided with Panetta in the dispute (Brennan later succeeded Panetta as Director of the CIA). When it was discovered that the November 2009 Fort Hood shooting and the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 a month later could have been prevented with better inter-agency intelligence sharing, Brennan and Panetta allegedly blamed Blair (which, according to Aid, was not justified), resulting in Obama's decision to replace him.[63]