Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

SEN. BOB CORKER: Out In The Open: Why America Needs To Declassify It

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • SEN. BOB CORKER: Out In The Open: Why America Needs To Declassify It

    OUT IN THE OPEN WHY AMERICA NEEDS TO DECLASSIFY ITS FOREIGN POLICY.

    [ Part 2.2: "Attached Text" ]

    BY SEN. BOB CORKER | JULY 31, 2013

    [intelligence79000168_0.jpg]

    For the past 11 years, and especially the during the last five,
    a significant portion of U.S. foreign policy and warfighting has
    been conducted through covert action -- the secret efforts led by
    intelligence agencies to protect America's national security abroad.

    While these efforts have clearly been successful in many cases,
    they have grown much larger than the unique, limited means they were
    designed to be. Today, covert operations appear to have expanded to
    include what have traditionally been overt military and diplomatic
    functions, blurring the lines of authority and leaving the public
    and most of Congress in the dark.

    To ensure the continued availability of covert action -- a highly
    valuable and effective tool under the right circumstances -- we must
    make certain that no president misuses, overuses, or employs this
    tactic simply out of convenience or the desire to avoid oversight
    and debate. As a result, it is important to ask just how much of U.S.

    foreign policy is conducted secretly. The answer, unfortunately,
    appears to be too much. 

    As President Barack Obama seeks to engage Congress on the future
    of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), the
    congressional authorization that grants the president authority to
    use force against those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, the time
    has come for our reliance on covert action to come out into the open
    and be subject to real policy debate and oversight.

    In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, U.S. intelligence
    agencies took the fight to the enemy, working to protect America's
    vital interests and inform our decision makers, while at the same
    time preparing the battlespace in Afghanistan for our men and women in
    uniform. That effort, and those that followed, demonstrated the value
    of quick, decisive, and precise action by U.S. intelligence agencies.

    Since the creation of the modern intelligence community in 1946,
    various declassified operations attest to the vital role that covert
    action can play in advancing American interests. Its very existence
    ensures that overt military action -- with its significant footprint of
    American boots on the ground -- is not the only option when diplomacy
    fails. Covert action can also provide America's partners -- who for
    domestic or international political reasons cannot accept overt
    assistance from the United States -- with a measure of plausible
    deniability.

    But the trend toward ever-increasing use of covert action also has
    damaging effects. In particular, it can undermine -- or at least run
    counter -- to larger, publicly stated foreign policy goals. Earlier
    this year, for example, Afghan President Hamid Karzai claimed to have
    been receiving cash in secret from the CIA for more than a decade.

    Press accounts alleged that the amounts involved may have reached into
    the tens of millions of dollars, but questions about the accountability
    of the U.S. tax-payer-funded cash transfers have been stonewalled. If
    the claims are accurate, they raise significant foreign policy issues,
    not least because a pillar of U.S. assistance in Afghanistan has been
    to reinforce the rule of law and combat corruption.

    The president, who has so far refused to provide any explanation for
    these payments in public or in private, must work with Congress to
    make sure overt U.S. aid and covert intelligence activities do not
    run at cross purposes.

    Covert action must also not be a substitute for major military
    operations. While the Pentagon conducts a publicly acknowledged drone
    campaign targeting terrorists in Yemen, published reports suggest that
    the intelligence community runs a parallel program of significant scope
    and scale. While the success of many of these operations is not in
    dispute, it is also clear that our broad counterterrorism efforts --
    visible and obvious as they are -- should not be handled primarily
    through covert action designed for unique circumstances where the
    role of the United States must truly be hidden. 

    The Obama administration has announced that responsibility for most
    drone activities will be shifted to the Department of Defense, but
    more must be done to bring America's offensive activities out into the
    open. In particular, the president and Congress must work together
    to ensure, over the long run, that large-scale offensive operations
    are conducted overtly, preserving covert action for the more precise,
    high value efforts it is designed to address.

    The problem isn't limited to alleged cash transfers or ostensibly
    covert counterterrorism operations. In May, the Senate Foreign
    Relations Committee approved, with broad, bipartisan support, a bill to
    provide targeted arms and training to vetted, moderate elements of the
    Syrian opposition. This type of public debate stands in stark contrast
    to the Obama administration's approach -- conducting its deliberations
    behind the veil of executive privilege, emerging only to announce
    the result on television, and then retreating back into the shadows
    to carry out its policies through covert methods. This approach not
    only lacks decisiveness, but it effectively prevents any real debate
    about U.S. policy in Syria. It also flies in the face of the statutory
    requirement that "the role of the United States Government ... not
    be apparent or acknowledged publicly" in covert actions.

    This is not to suggest that the United States should avoid covert
    means to go after terrorists or to protect U.S. national interests.

    But it is to suggest that there must be safeguards in place to ensure
    that U.S. policies are well coordinated, moving in the same direction,
    and that covert action is not used simply to avoid public discussion
    and oversight.

    Indeed, it a disservice to members of the intelligence community to
    ask them to take on foreign policy and warfighting responsibilities
    except in truly unique circumstances when national security is at
    stake. Covert action is a valuable tool, but misuse and overuse
    undermines it.

    What is really missing from this equation is responsible leadership
    in Congress to hold the administration accountable on questions of
    foreign policy. Right now, we have a unique opportunity to fix this
    problem, at least with respect to our counterterrorism operations.

    Since the passage of the AUMF in 2001, Congress has largely sat
    silent as hundreds of thousands of Americans have served in harm's
    way in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. This feckless dereliction
    of duty must end. Congress must take up and debate a new AUMF that
    is appropriate for the threats and challenges we face today. Only by
    owning up to our responsibilities can Congress bring foreign policy
    out into the open, where the American people can hold it accountable.

    Charles Ommanney/Getty Images

    [arr-indent.gif]  SUBJECTS: U.S. FOREIGN POLICY, SECURITY, INTELLIGENCE

    Bob Corker is a U.S. Senator from Tennessee and is the Ranking Member
    of the Committee on Foreign Relations.

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/07/30/out_in_the_open_america_dec
    lassify_foreign_policy?page=full

Working...
X