American - Public | February 4, 1947 -
All officers of the Intelligence Community, and especially its most senior officer, must conduct themselves in a manner that earns and retains the public trust. The American people are uncomfortable with government activities that do not take place in the open, subject to public scrutiny and review.
Dennis C. Blair
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The Industrial Revolution caused a centuries-long shift in power to the West; globalization is now shifting the balance again.
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High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa'ida organization that was attacking this country.
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I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given.
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The information gained from these techniques was valuable in some instances, but there is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means.
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The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security.
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My experience is the White House is not a very good place to coordinate intelligence, much less to integrate it.
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You can't always get someone where you want to with just sticks. There have to be some carrots, there have to be some other shaping things.
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I find when you talk with the Chinese on most subjects, they are very practical.
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There's sort of a theory that's going around in the China-watching community about a perfect storm coming up with the 2008 Olympics, a U.S. election and a Taiwanese election, some sort of mutually reinforcing explosion and crisis.
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As is often the case when things are complicated, extreme views have superficial appeal. On the one extreme, some see China as an inevitable enemy that must be contained; on the other hand, there are those who see China as a slowly developing democracy that can be embraced.
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I know it sounds Pollyannish and 'Kumbaya'-like, but I find that the more that you expose Americans to the diversity of what's going on in China and vice versa, the more people find that there is this broad middle path. And so I'm a strong advocate of intense visits and dialogue back and forth.
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