Word: blaire
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There's a growing dread at the CIA these days that the vultures are circling, waiting to pick off the agency's best parts. The latest move causing concern is a play by Admiral Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), to name the next intelligence chief in Kabul. CIA director Leon Panetta, who has already named his own chief from the CIA's ranks, is reportedly fighting back, much to his boss's consternation. The decision about who gets Kabul will reportedly be made in the White House, though Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein has said...
...would be justified in asking itself, What will stop Blair from taking another key station - Baghdad, for instance? Blair is a Navy officer, and the suspicion is that his grab for Kabul has something to do with a plan for the Pentagon to assume the CIA's authority. What's more, it's not as if Blair's argument is without merit. We are in the middle of two inconclusive wars, and the Pentagon needs good, detailed tactical intelligence on these two countries, so why shouldn't Blair cater to the Pentagon's needs, possibly even appoint a uniformed military...
...know whether Blair intends to appoint a uniformed officer chief in Kabul or not. But if he does, we need to know whether that chief will be in the military's chain of command or remain an independent voice, one the President needs to hear as we get deeper and deeper into Afghanistan...
...ought to stand and fall on its vision and policies more than the P.M.'s style of leadership. That it doesn't owes much to the prolonged absence of any big plan from Brown. The Prime Minister shelved plans for an election only months after taking over from Tony Blair in 2007 - a vote he would have likely won - in part because he wanted to set out his much talked about vision. It's still not clear exactly what that is. "I don't know whether it was naivete, such was the robotic culture in the Labour party about loyalty...
...flurry of complaints from believers but was somewhat overshadowed by the postelection excitement over the incoming President (who would later acknowledge the contributions of atheists to the U.S. in his Inaugural speech, saying "We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Hindus and nonbelievers"). (Watch a video "Tony Blair's New Calling...