Leading national security expert Frank Gaffney tells Newsmax he is “increasingly alarmed” that President Barack Obama is conducting a “wrecking operation” on America’s national security.
Gaffney, an assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan, also warned that the Obama administration’s reaction to a swine flu pandemic could be a vital test of homeland security: a virus like the swine flu strain could be used by an adversary in an act of biological warfare.
Newsmax.TV’s Ashley Martella referred to the Obama administration’s announcement that it would release photos showing mistreatment of terror suspects, after releasing previously classified memos regarding interrogation techniques, and asked if that was a wise move.
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“I’m increasingly alarmed by what President Obama is doing,” said Gaffney, founder and president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy.
“These are two specific examples of I think predictably problematic activities.
“We’ve already seen, in the aftermath of the release of the legal memoranda, calls proliferating both here and abroad for what amount of inquisitions of those who provided the president of the United States with their best legal advice in an emergency moment in our history, in the aftermath of 9/11.
“To think they’re being hectored, let alone perhaps prosecuted for this, is I think very troubling. And predictably as well, the photographs that they’re proposing to release will undoubtedly further diminish America’s standing in the world, create whole new sets of controversies, and otherwise demoralize the people of the United States.”
Gaffney cited the “sweeping cuts” in the defense budget, and the administration’s diplomatic outreach efforts toward the Iranians, Cubans, Venezuelans and other actual or potential adversaries, which he believes will be seen by them “as signs of weakness, as signs of perhaps even submission, particularly by the Islamists around the world.
“You put all this together and I’m afraid what it really constitutes is a wrecking operation on our national security by the president of the United States. And I find it very troubling, both in its particular elements and even more so taken together as a comprehensive approach to how best to protect this country.”
Martella again brought up the memos relating to interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects.
“The people we have to be most concerned about are our enemies,” Gaffney observed.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that disclosing the nature and the exact methodology of our enhanced interrogation techniques on the one hand and telling them definitively what we learned from their colleagues is probably going to make them more formidable adversaries, and not actually enhance our security.”
Martella asked Gaffney for his opinion on the planned closing of Guantanamo Bay, noting that there are as yet no arrangements for what to do with the detainees there.
“Guantanamo Bay is the premier institution in the world today not only for detaining the most dangerous people on the planet, but also conducting, in a professional and authorized way, their interrogation,” Gaffney declared.
“I think it’s a terrible mistake to close this facility, especially in the absence of a plan for what to do with these individuals…
“This is totally unnecessary and I think ill-advised in the extreme, but it’s just another example of what I believe President Obama’s approach to national security has been about in the first 100 days — namely weakening our national security.”
Martella asked if the swine flu epidemic could be considered a security threat, and if the U.S. should be taking extra precautions along the Mexican border.
Gaffney said that with modern air travel, any outbreak of a virulent strain of a virus like this “can have potential pandemic implications.
“That’s not simply a national security problem but it certainly could be one, especially if what has generated this strain might be a virus that has been deliberately manipulated by people engaging in what amounts to biological warfare…
“It’s certainly true that it will wind up here in due course irrespective of what we do to try to secure the border.”
See Video: Frank Gaffney dissects Obama's dangerous positions on national security - Click Here Now|
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