Broder was referring to Charles W. Freeman Jr., who was to chair the National Intelligence Council, the group that prepares National Intelligence Estimates for the president. Concerted, devastating, though specious attacks on Freeman’s character and tendencies—he’s critical of Israel as few American diplomats dare to be—forced him to withdraw his name from consideration. American policy, in the Middle East especially, will suffer as a consequence.
At a time when policy-makers need even-handed critics willing to look at all sides objectively, the demolition of the Freeman nomination is a victory for those who want business as usual, which means, in the Middle East: don’t question. Follow Israel’s lead. Move on.
Purpose of the National Intelligence Council
Formed in 1973, the NIC's goal, by its own definition, "is to provide policymakers with the best, unvarnished, and unbiased information--regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy."
The NIC broke down during the Bush administration. It became an echo chamber of the president's policies, rather than its intelligence check. The council’s greatest failure was its claim that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction. Bush used that claim as the justification for invading Iraq in 2003. The NIC failed because it did not challenge presidential presumptions, even though, had it properly weighed and analyzed the intelligence it was provided by the 16 intelligence agencies, we now know, it would not have reached those damning conclusions about Iraq.
The Attack on Freeman
Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, brought in Freeman because that's what Freeman is good at--his experience is vast and varied and he challenges assumptions. He would do so at one of Washington's most critical junctures: where intelligence assessments meet the presidency. He wouldn't shrink from sacred cows.
But some cows are more powerful, and sacred, than even Freeman calculated.
The "lobby" Broder was referring to is the Israeli lobby. Beginning with a series of scurrilously tendentious blog posts about Freeman by Steve Rosen, a former executive with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in the United States)--and spreading from there to other blogs and the mainstream press, a cabal was drummed up against the Freeman nomination. The reason: Freeman's supposed anti-Israel, pro-Arab stance. Rosen, incidentally, is under indictment for spying for Israel. Should he be the one casting stones about objectivity?
Freeman’s Views
And what, exactly, has Rosen and AIPAC apoplectic about Freeman?
Without question, Freeman had his occasional issues. A career of such long date usually does. His apologia for the Chinese regime’s crushing of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989 is inexcusable. His service on the advisory board of a state-owned Chinese oil company has also been picked at as a bone of suspicion, though if Americans’ service on corporate boards, domestic or not, were to become an issue, we might as well give up on running the country with anyone but career politicians (Condoleezza Rice, remember, served on Chevron’s board before her accession to the Bush administration, and Chevron’s interests in China are not small.
But China wasn’t what did Freeman in. His positions on the Arab-Israeli conflict did.
Here's an often-quoted excerpt from a speech Freeman gave in 2006 at the Arab-US Policymakers Conference. Keep in mind the speech's title: “American-GCC Relations: An Assessment of Reforms, Elections, Challenges and the Prospects for Regional Peace and Stability.” Freeman was doing what he's good at: purposefully setting out to challenge conventional wisdom and see past damaging (read prejudiced) assumptions:
... the American decision to let Israel call the shots in the Middle East has revealed how frightened Israelis now are of their Arab neighbors and how reluctant this fear has made them to risk respectful coexistence with the other peoples of their region. The results of the experiment are in: left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not. Tragically, despite all the advantages and opportunities Israel has had over the fifty-nine years of its existence, it has failed to achieve concord and reconciliation with anyone in its region, still less to gain their admiration or affection. Instead, with each decade, Israel's behavior has deviated farther from the humane ideals of its founders and the high ethical standards of the religion that most of its inhabitants profess. Israel and the Palestinians, in particular, are caught up in an endless cycle of reprisal and retaliation that guarantees the perpetuation of conflict in which levels of mutual atrocities continue to escalate. As a result, each generation of Israelis and Palestinians has accumulated new reasons to loathe the behavior of the other, and each generation of Arabs has detested Israel with more passion than its predecessor. This is not how peace is made. Here, too, a break with the past and a change in course are clearly in order.
Next Page: Israel's Critis, Media Complicity and Obama's Silence.
