Word: craige
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...called his former aide John Brennan, now Obama's top counterterrorism adviser; Clinton CIA chief John Deutch called Deputy National Security Adviser Tom Donilon. Inside the West Wing, the former directors found that a small group of like-minded allies close to Obama was already forming in opposition to Craig. One was National Security Council (NSC) aide Denis McDonough, a former Senate staffer who has a windowless, low-ceilinged basement office next to the Situation Room - and daily access to the President. On April 15, the day before the extension was set to expire, the President invited eight officers...
...Obama arrived at Emanuel's office a few minutes later, took off his windbreaker and sat down at a table lined with about a dozen national-security and political advisers. He asked each to state a position and then convened an impromptu debate, selecting Craig and McDonough to argue opposing sides. Craig deployed one of Obama's own moral arguments: that releasing the memos "was consistent with taking a high road" and was "sensitive to our values and our traditions as well as the rule of law." Obama paused, then decided in favor of Craig, dictating a detailed statement explaining...
...Craig, it turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory. Four days later, former Vice President Dick Cheney attacked Obama on Fox News Channel for dismantling the policies he and Bush had put in place to keep the country safe. More significant was the reaction within Obama's camp. Democratic pollsters charted a disturbing trend: a drop in Obama's support among independents, driven in part by national-security issues. Emanuel quietly delegated his aides to get more deeply involved in the process. Damaged by the episode, Craig was about to suffer his first big setback...
...Fate of Guantánamo Bay Obama repeatedly promised during the presidential campaign to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, but Guantánamo proved much easier to say than to do. Craig was under pressure to eliminate related Bush policies that made it infamous: indefinite detention without charge or trial and the use of military commissions - special courts that curtailed defendants' rights...
...April 17, Craig took the first step, assembling officials from across government in his office. Not only was he going to bring some prisoners from Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. for trial, he told them, but he was also going to turn some of the detainees loose. Seventeen were Uighurs, members of an ethnic minority from northwestern China, whom Bush and the courts judged had been wrongly swept up in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11. Obama's top national-security advisers - including Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others - had approved Craig's plan to release...