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John Brennan

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2017-01-09

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2017-01-09

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1. “Of those who I may criticize. And one of the things I'm very concerned about is the discourse that is taking place right now. And I was very fortunate to grow up in a household where politeness was something that my mother and father instilled in me and the nuns and Christian brothers and being courteous. And when I look at some of the political environments and the language that is used and the words, I despair, and so I'm hoping that that discourse is going to elevate.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “On the 20th of January at noon, I will no longer be the director of CIA. I can't think of a better job ever than the director of CIA. So I will do something else. I want to reintroduce myself to my family, reintroduce myself to American culture. I don't know when the last time I saw a movie Sleep and then continue to be involved. I'd like I've spent a lot of time on national security issues. I'm not going to be silent. I may do some. Writing, speaking, commentating, or whatever from the sidelines.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Basic requirements in order for people to live. So I have great hope in science and technology and great hope that this country's great private sector and scientific and technological community are going to find ways that we'll be able to arrest this downward slope in so many areas of the human condition and so that we're not going to have the suffering and the humanitarian disasters and the conflict and the violence. I don't know if there's a way to prevent terrorists from using weapons and using fabricating IEDs. So, with every technological innovation, the terrorist and the evildoers find ways to exploit it. I'd like to think that ultimately we're going to find a way to use this man's ingenuity to reverse the course of so many of these trends.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “And I see this wave not subsiding yet. And when I think about what we have over the next decade, I worry. At the same time, when I look at the history of the world in the last couple centuries, there have been challenges in the past that because of man's innovation and evolution and development, the Industrial Revolution, technology, communication, we are able to find ways to advance the human condition. And I'm hoping that with some of these capabilities and breakthroughs, in ways that we can't even envision today, that we'll be able to nourish people, and it's not going to require arable land. It's not going to require rainfall, that there are going to be ways to at least take care of the very minimum.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “I think that a number of countries the globe are going to face real challenges in terms of meeting even the minimum requirements of their people, in terms of what they need to exist. Their economic interests, their political interests, and that the institutions of governance in these countries are not up to the task, and that the officials or the government leaders in many of these countries are not skilled enough or capable enough in order to navigate very, very difficult waters. And that corruption continues to exist, and that undermines the very fabric of the systems of governance. And terrorist organizations are able to attract the downtrodden, the disenfranchised, those that have given up hope.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Yes, yes, yes, yes. But when I think about what's going on in so many countries, and if everybody was to have a vote, I don't know whether or not the resultant government would, which I believe governments have responsibility, would protect the rights of the minority. To me, that's what democracy is all about, that the government that is elected and the people and the officials that are elected, it's not just to promote the interests of those who elected that government, it's to ensure that those voices of the individuals of the minority are going to be safeguarded and protected.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Displaced Mubarak. They wanted to gain political power and influence, but they didn't want to do it so that our concept of democracy was going to then take root. It was their version and their vision of what in Egypt should look like. And that's what I think we have to be very careful about is not thinking that this great country of ours of 240 years of experience, we're still working on this whole democratic principle. And I must tell you, sometimes I question democracy as Samantha Power says. Democracy is in worst form of government apart from all others. And when I think about”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Yeah, and I think there were very, very unrealistic expectations in Washington, including in some parts of the administration that the Arab Spring was going to push out these authoritarian regimes and democracy is going to flourish, because that's what people want. They want freedom, they want liberty. Not so much. They want it for themselves or their group or their tribe. But the concept of democracy is something that really is not ingrained in a lot of the people and the cultures and the countries out there. And so as we saw with the Muslim Brotherhood, they wanted to”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “But I do believe that what was unleashed as a result of that invasion was something that led to a Middle East of greater violence and bloodshed and chaos. And now we're still picking up the pieces from it.”

   2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “With the Arab Spring have been different? Yes, it would have been different as well. I'm not saying it would have been better. And who knows? Saddam Hussein might have decided to use those capabilities against another neighbor. But after he was pushed out of Kuwait in the 90s, I think, yes, he was a pain in the butt.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “If we hadn't gotten into Iraq, oh, it'd be tremendously different. The Middle East would not look like it does today. I do think that was the reason why there was the tremendous slide into violence and bloodshed in that part of the world. Raged in Iraq for many years. And now ISIL is the outgrowth of that. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and a killer. He had repressed a lot of that animosity, tension, anger, and violence. And by taking him away without having then the ability to replace him. Or to succeed him with something that was going to be able to allow the successful war to give birth to a peace and an enduring political system is the reason why Iraq imploded and the impact then on Syria was felt. So the history of the region would have been much different.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “I don't believe it was the reason for it. I think it was a contributing factor to the subsequent events that took place. Because we were not there and we weren't able to do the training, we weren't able to do the advising and the assisting. Might it have turned out worse if we were there? Yeah. Might we have lost hundreds of U.S. military at the time? Might it have become even more of a rallying cry for ISIL? Yeah. So it's so hard to determine. But history would have been different without a doubt. It would have been different.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Well, I think if we left some number of troops there, the history would have been different. I'm not saying that ISIL wouldn't have ultimately grown, but we would have had some serious decisions to make if we continue to have a military presence there and advises parts of the country. And so, yeah, people can make an argument that it was because of that withdrawal that led to that quick dissolution of the Iraqi military that ISIL was able to take advantage of.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “This issue of intelligence failure, what happens in the world is a result of so many things. What we do, what the Russians do, has tremendous implications for what events unfold in places like Syria or Iraq. You can never anticipate as an intelligent professional what your government is going to do because especially in the United States, I mean, that has an impact. Did we not see that the Iraqi military was going to fold in the face of ISIL as quickly as it did? Yeah, we didn't. It was after the withdrawal of US military there, the Iraqi forces, especially in the north, were basically Shia forces. And they were quickly overrun by the remnants of the Sunni elements of the Iraqi army that became part of ISIL, so it had this momentum, and it had this interest that was in its economists.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “That's what he was concerned about, that we really need to have a better understanding before providing support or military support. There's also issues of international law that we try to respect and honor just because Russia doesn't respect and honor it when it comes to things like Ukraine. There needs to be a legal basis, an international legal basis for any type of military invention. And when the Russians were opposed to it, that was the difference in the Balkans. So there were opportunities there to do something on the military front. But absent a UN Security Council resolution to go in unilaterally basically and to try to dislodge a government, a recognized government, that has implications for future actions.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “and was more vulnerable, yet the opposition in Syria, even in those early days and certainly over time, was a very eclectic one. There were those who were secular, there were those who were former members of the military, and then there were ones that were on the extremist end of the spectrum. And supporting the opposition blindly and throwing weapons over the transom into Syria could have led to a worse outcome than today.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Looking back, there's so many hypotheticals there. If we knew then what we know now in terms of what ISIL was able to do in terms of just this explosive growth in a rock that then is able to lop over into Syria, Would we have pursued the same course? Probably not. ISIL didn't exist when the Arab Spring erupted in Syria. And if additional support was provided by various international actors to the Free Syrian opposition, Free Syrian Army early on, might that have made a difference? Maybe at that time the Syrian regime was reeling.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “And his many hour press conference recently, he did say that he appreciated all the support for his grand accomplishments. I don't think what he has accomplished in Syria is something that he should take pride in. They devastated that country and carried out attacks with They just supported the Bashar Asad regime. So has he been able to advance some of his relationships with foreign countries, yes? Has he tried to take advantage of perceptions of U.S. lack of leadership, yes? So has he been able to interfere in a lecture here? Yes. But he also is being exposed for what he is doing.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Can be taken, but also for other governments to recognize that the Russians as well as others can exploit elections for their own purposes and objectives.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “Well, I think what Mr Putin seeks to do and the intelligence agencies are his instruments to accomplish is to shape the outcomes of elections so that the results will be more conducive to Russian interests. We have seen it happen in a number of places in terms of trying to work with corrupt politicians or using media sources to skew the perception of voters as well as the playing field. So this is something that will be coming out in this report. We have great confidence in our understanding, our knowledge and our assessment of what took place. There are some things that we don't know, but there's a lot that we do know. And it's important for that to be exposed, not just for future elections here, so that safeguards”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “He was the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, when I was the director of CIA. We testified together. I think he tried to do some things inside of DIA to be able to take advantage of their capabilities and authorities. As an intelligence officer, and he was an intelligence officer for most of his military career, I think he recognizes the importance of it. And I'm hoping that as national security advisor, he is going to take full advantage of the intelligence community's capabilities. So we'll have to see, but Mike Flynn, given his overseas experience in the war zones and his familiarity with the intelligence mission, I would find, I'd be flabbergasted if he shunned intelligence.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “He is somebody who has been on the intelligence oversight committee in the Senate. He's somebody who has taken his responsibility there very seriously. He appreciates and applauds the work that we have done. I have enjoyed my association with him. I think he is somebody who would serve that position well.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “I think they've disavowed that. In fact, I think Sean Spicer said today that that's 100% inaccurate or whatever. And there is a report that President-elect Trump is going to name Dan Coates, former senator from Indiana, as the new director of national intelligence.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “I think they could be very, very serious, obviously. And the new administration and any president needs to recognize that this is a challenging and dangerous world and that the intelligence community and intelligence professionals can help to keep this country safe and protect our national security interests. And any president or administration that does not recognize that is one that is putting this country's national security at great risk and peril.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “That's certainly possible because our people work more than a forty hour week. Many, many of them could make much more money on the outside, but they serve at the agency because they really believe in the importance of the work and they believe in the mission. And if they feel as though that is not being appreciated or recognized or utilized, why would they make all those sacrifices, put their lives at risk, do the things they do for their fellow Americans if they're not going to be?”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “And I tell our workforce, those that may be reading those tweets or reading the press accounts, to make sure that they recognize that they now have a special responsibility to try to inform the new president about the global landscape as well as what it is that we know what it is we assess. So I am very much hoping and counting on the new administration, new president, to treat the intelligence community and the CIA and the people of the CIA with the utmost respect. They can challenge our work and the president, the elect, when he becomes president, can certainly disagree with our assessments and our views, but at a minimum our work, our sacrifices, our contributions to this country security needs to be recognized, appreciated. And respected”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Well, I attribute it to the President-elect's lack of understanding about what the intelligence community does in our profession. There have been a lot of changes since the Iraq WMD issue. We have revamped a lot of the practices and procedures and the reviews that we do. I think the quality of the product is much stronger. I think our capabilities are greater.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “That's why after 9 11, CIA boots were the first boots on the ground in Afghanistan within two weeks. The first American to die in Afghanistan after 9-11 was a CI officer, Mike Span.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “The CIA is no longer in the detention business much less the EIT business. I think that is appropriate. But I do remember also in the aftermath of 9-11, when there was this great concern about the follow-on ways of attacks, it was considered to be an existential threat to this country, and there were individuals who really were concerned that Al Qaeda had biological and chemical weapons they were going to use and they were going to be another series of devastating attacks here. And a lot of people, well-meaning and motivated people, thought that these EITs were the only way to get this information. So the time was different. So looking back on it, I think easier to say that it never should have happened. But when the president of the United States gives the CIA an order, I must tell you that CI officers try to”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “Yeah, and it has been used as a propaganda tool. I would say that the terrorists don't play by the same rules that we do. We shouldn't stoop to their tactics just the way we shouldn't stoop to the tactics that the Russians use against our elections. We shouldn't stoop to the tactics that terrorists use. And I do think that it is counterproductive because it can be used against us. I don't find that it has the only way or even the way to get that information.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “Well, I'm also glad that Donald Trump, when he listened to General Mattis, seemed to adjust his view about waterboarding in some of these EITs. I do believe that the Army Field Manual provides the necessary foundation for the interrogation and debriefings. The CIA was damaged quite a bit as a result of the experience with the EITs. I don't think it's something that we as an organization should be involved in. I don't think it's necessary. One can never establish cause and effect. I know a lot of my CI colleagues, current informer, may disagree. But because somebody was subjected to an enhanced interrogation technique and subsequently provided accurate information does not mean that that was the only way to get that information, nor was it causative as far as what prompted an individual to ultimately give it up.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “Because it was a program that the President of the United States had authorized. It was a program that the Department of Justice had repeatedly reviewed for its legality. It was a program that a lot of people felt was essential to be able to prevent Al Qaeda from carrying out another type of attack. And so I wasn't privy to a lot of the details of how it was being conducted. Looking back on it now, do I wish I would have spoken up more? Yes, absolutely. And so my reservations were expressed, but they were not expressed with the force that I think that I should have.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “At the time, I was of 9-11 in the aftermath, I was the deputy executive director of CIA, which is basically the equivalent of a deputy chief operating officer. So I was not in the chain command for it, but yet I was still a member of the senior leadership team. And I had expressed my concerns about them at the time to some individuals who On the seventh floor of CIA. But I didn't hit my fist on the table. I didn't push the issue”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “I know that the president-elect between Election Day and Auguration Day is consumed with a lot of things, and I would not presume that they should take a briefing every day. I think it should be a regular occurrence, certainly. But the president elect is still just the president elect. I do think it's going to be very important for the president, the new president in inauguration day, to have a regular engagement with the intelligence community and with the intelligence product and the PDB. Absolutely.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “Very important. The information in them is something that I think every president, going back to Nixon, has valued because it will allow them to see developments, see trends, see That require the president's attention. And presence received the information in different ways, you know, some would want to get fully briefed on the book, some would want to read the book first and then have a discussion. But I think staying abreast of the intelligence picture is important for any and every president”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “I felt he certainly was a disruptive force, but I didn't feel that he had posed that type of threat. This is where, and I was also talking about capabilities and intentions. And you see someone's military capabilities grow, but there was no indication that Saddam Hussein was going to use, even if he had BW or CW in large quantities at the time, to use it in order to carry out another invasion or whatever. I think President Bush at that time was miserved by people around him. It's a responsibility of the people around the president to make sure that the president gets the full array of information and intelligence and not to cherry pick it in order to get the president to agree and support a certain policy path. And that's where intelligence is particularly important, that we don't just respond to a leading question, that we want to make sure, especially that the president”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “I think that there were individuals in the Bush administration who were determined to have this Iraq policy and an invasion of Iraq because they felt as though Saddam Hussein was a real threat to regional stability as well as to the United States.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “There's going to be more conflict because people are going to try to stake out what their interests are as part of that subgroup, that subnational group. While at the same time, you have this increasing nationalism that is more and more antagonistic too, those groups. So when I look out over the next decade or two that both the rise and demise of nationalism, I think, is going to come into direct more attention, and particularly with the flows of people and populations. And it's not just because of conflict and civil strife. I look at the displacement because of lack of economic opportunity, increasing displacement of people because our coasts are being climate as a result of climate change exactly. Which is going to lead to greater population flows. So we need to be looking at how we're going to give people a reason to stay.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “Seen a little of that here, you know. Absolutely. Yes, and we're seeing it in Europe as well. And it's the reaction to more flows of immigration or whatever. But in a lot of other countries, you have a demise of that national identity. Right now, when I look across the Middle East, as well as Africa and South Asia, there are more and more people who identify with their tribe, with their religion, with their ethnic group, and not with the concept of being a Yemeni or being a Libyan. They are a Misrotten or they are something else, or they're a Shia or a Sunni, and that just feeds these tensions, these sectarian and other tensions that really undermine the concept of nation state. So you're seeing a pull in different directions here, and I am concerned that if people are giving up on the nation-state concept in a lot of these countries,”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “Yeah, it's interesting when you look at on the global stage right now, there is both the rise and demise of nationalism and national identity. There are a number of countries where there is tremendous growth of nationalism from the standpoint of we don't want our identity, our nationality, to be deluded.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “do what we can in order to help the rest of the world because we are citizens of this world and I don't think that we should turn away from the problems that are beyond our borders because we are the country made up of people who have come from many many parts of the world and I think we need to do our part and I think our part is a lot larger than other countries”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “When people talk about American conceptualism, I don't think we're certainly any better than anybody else. But we have had exceptional good fortune because of this great, bountiful country and our resources and our history and our experience. And we are the world's lone superpower. We really are. And as a result of that exceptional good fortune, I think we have exceptional responsibilities to do what we can to try to bring a semblance of peace and order to the rest of the world. And so retracting from that American involvement overseas and trying to just focus on ourselves, I think, misses two things. One is misses the fact that we cannot isolate ourselves from global events. They have direct impact on us. And number two, if we're going to continue to be the world's greatest democracy and superpower, we need to make sure that we”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “Yeah, and I think we have to recognize that this is a tremendously interconnected world and what happens on the world. Has impact on us here in the United States, both in terms of our national security as well as our economy, and we cannot isolate ourselves. And those oceans do not protect us from the influence of foreign events and developments. And I think about American exceptionalism in a different way than a lot of people.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “in the pointy end of the spear. You have to have the reforms, the political reforms, the economic reforms. This disparity in wealth that continues to exist out there. And when I see the growth in terms of the numbers of people, the increasing urbanization. And so the next decade or more is going to be Very challenging for a lot of these countries.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “And we should not be just addressing the symptoms of the problems, the violence, the terrorism, the extremism. We really have to get to those underlying factors and condition that contribute to them. So it's the institutions of governance. It is the economic reforms that need to take place so that there can be opportunities for individuals to take, to be part of a modern day economy, to be able to have the opportunity to vote for their government leaders. They need to be able to have the type of education and schooling that they need in order to gain the skills to participate in modern economy. Their judicial systems need to be revamped. And CIA does focus a lot because that's our responsibility on preventing those terrorist attacks. And we try to strengthen this security and intelligence services, which is very important. But you have to look behind.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “I foresee more challenges ahead, unfortunately foresee more violence and bloodshed. The Middle East is going through a very, very difficult phase of its history, and the Arab Spring, I thought, brought to the fore a lot of issues that needed to be addressed because there was repression in so many of these countries, authoritarian rulers who didn't take into account the interests of their citizens, corruption still runs rampant in many countries”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Yeah, I remember being in the embassy in my office when the names of the killed were coming across in cable, and I saw Robert Ames and I said, oh, maybe there's somebody at that embassy who also is the name Robert Ames. Bob Ames wouldn't be out there because he's back at headquarters. And when I found out that it was him, it was a tremendous shock. And it made very real the conflict, the violence, the bloodshed that was going on, because he was the first person that I knew personally. who died at the hands of Terrace. I have known many others since then, but that was a very profound event in my life. And it made me, I think, maybe redouble my interest in the Middle East. Because of The example he set for me.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “And he was at the embassy in Beirut. He was in the stairwell when that bomb went off, the truck bomb, and he was killed instantly, and it was six months before retirement. And his wife and family then were left without Bob. And his star is one of those on the memorial wall, one of the 117. And every year when we have our memorial ceremony, many of the family members of those stars come back year after year after year. And Bob's wife and some of his sons come back. So he is somebody who made such an imprint on me because he was such a specialist in intelligence. He was a tremendous Arabist, and he was somebody who I think had the integrity and professional talent that I wanted to emulate.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “Yeah, Bob Ames is a special person. It was a book that was written about him. Years ago or so called the Good Spy by Kai Bird. And he was somebody who worked in the Middle East, was a very good Arabist, worked with Palestinians, lived in Yemen. He was an operations officer for most of his career. And then, toward the end of his career, he became the head of the analytic office that was responsible for the Near East and South Asia. That was the office that I was in before I went out to Saudi Arabia the first time. And when I was studying Arabic for those six months, I would frequently go into the office on the weekends, and he would be there, and he would test me my Arabic. And he was a master Arabist. I was a rather novice Arabist at the time. And it really came to respect and admire him. And so that's why when he was 49 and he was on travel to the Middle East.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “And that was after the church and Pike committee hearings that looked at some of the CI activities that needed to be cleaned up. And that's when the Congress decided to have oversight committees in both the House and the Senate, inappropriately so. So, you know, was I attracted to CIA because of what it stood for the time? I had interest in CIA because when I was young, I found out that Nathan Hale, the America's first buy, was hanged on September 22nd in 1776. I was born on September 22nd, 1955, so I remember when I was reading my history book and I saw that he was hanging on that day. It just stuck in my mind. I said, maybe, you know, I will be a spy like Nathan Hale, but hopefully I won't have the same end.”

    2017-01-09 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 111 - John Brennan · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source