John O. Brennan
John O. Brennan
John Owen Brennan is an American government official who is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; his title was Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President. His responsibilities included overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters, and he met with the President daily. Previously, he advised President Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPublic Servant
Date of Birth22 September 1955
CountryUnited States of America
If a person is a U.S. citizen, and he is on the battlefield in Afghanistan or Iraq trying to attack our troops, he will face the full brunt of the U.S. military response.
I think the rule should be that if we're going to take actions overseas that result in the deaths of people, the United States should take responsibility for that.
The actions that we take on the counterterrorism front, again, are to take actions against individuals where we believe that the intelligence base is so strong and the nature of the threat is so grave and serious, as well as imminent, that we have no recourse except to take this action that may involve a lethal strike.
I do not - I never believed it's better to kill a terrorist than to detain him. We want to detain as many terrorists as possible so we can elicit the intelligence from them in the appropriate manner so that we can disrupt follow-on terrorist attacks.
You know, President Obama feels very strongly that the government has a responsibility to engage with the American people, as well as with the world community.
Al-Qa'ida seeks to portray America as an enemy of the world's Muslims. But President Obama has made it clear that the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam.
The CIA has acknowledged that it has detained about 100 terrorists since 9/11, and about a third of them have been subjected to what the CIA refers to as 'enhanced interrogation tactics,' and only a small proportion of those have in fact been subjected to the most serious types of enhanced procedures.
Where terrorists offer injustice, disorder and destruction, the United States and its allies stand for freedom, fairness, equality, hope, and opportunity.
Yes, war is hell. It is awful. It involves human beings killing other human beings, sometimes innocent civilians. That is why we despise war.
We are in this business, whether it be intelligence or the government, to protect freedom, democracy and liberty, not to violate that.
We are a nation of laws, and we will always act within the bounds of the law.
Throughout my career, I had the great fortune to experience firsthand as well as to witness what it means to be a CIA officer.
The risk of just one terrorist with just one nuclear weapon is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.
The men and women of the CIA are a national treasure.