Gina Haspel Quotes
I think it is important to recall the context of those challenging times immediately following 9/11. For me, I had just returned to Washington from an overseas posting and I reported for duty on the morning of 9/11. I knew in my gut when I saw the video of the first plane hitting the tower in Manhattan that it was bin Laden.
United States, Congress, Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence. Nomination of Gina Haspel to Be Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Government Publishing Office, 2019.
Bush claimed he did not remember the conversation. His incoming National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, was also briefed about bin Laden by the Clinton anti-terrorism director, Richard Clarke. The Bush Administration ignored the warnings until bin Laden struck on 9-11
36 days later, September 11, he did strike. See {617467} for some of the specific contents. The memo was kept secret by the Bush administration until public pressure as a result of the 9-11 Commission hearings forced the declassification and release. At that point it became clear that there was no reason that the memo could not have been released much earlier except that it was embarrassing. See {637530} and {637533} for two other Bin Laden Warnings that Bush and his team ignored.
The “Principals Committee” is the senior interagency forum for consideration of policy issues affecting national security. It includes the National Security Director (Chair), the CIA Director, the Secretary of Defense and his Deputy, the Secretary of State and his Deputy, the Chairman of the Jount Chief’s of Staff, The Special Representative to the United Nations and other staff as invited. Clarke was almost always invited to these meeting when terrorism was discussed but he did not have a vote. This is a very important quotation for several reasons. First, it shows the influence that the Defense Department and CIA leaders had with President Bush before the 9-11 attack. It also illustrates dramatically how reluctant our military and CIA were to use drones. It was President Obama who overruled them and changed America policy to use Drones to protect American interests. It also indicates how there was a split regarding the perception of the danger of Al Qaeda and bin Laden with Clark and some of the other Principals placing more value on a military strike than the military and covert action leaders. This is not uncommon despite the fact that public perception is that it is always the military leaders who are the hawks. Also, it illustrates the problem of allowing the military point of view to always prevail in national policy making involving use of force. See {639322}.
Gina Cheri Walker Haspel is an American intelligence officer who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 2018 to 2021. She is the first woman to hold the post on a permanent basis and was previously the deputy director under Mike Pompeo during the early presidency of Donald Trump.
