jim jones

Marc Ambinder has a seriously detailed curtain-raiser on a turf war that’s roiled the intelligence community for months. Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, and Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, have clashed over who controls the top U.S. intelligence officer in various foreign countries. But Ambinder goes way deeper to provide a [...]

Update: I am retracting this post, published yesterday, titled “Inside This Morning’s White House Afghanistan Meeting: Anger With Eikenberry, ‘Beef’ With McChrystal.”
My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past stories, and [...]

Update, 8:50 a.m.: I am retracting this post, published yesterday, titled “Inside This Morning’s White House Afghanistan Meeting: Anger With Eikenberry, ‘Beef’ With McChrystal.”
My original source for the post stands by the account provided. The individual, a National Security Council staffer who spoke on condition of anonymity, has provided truthful and verified information on past [...]

President Obama will host this morning what’s expected to be his final meeting with his national security team on Afghanistan strategy ahead of a revision of/re-commitment to what the strategy will be and how to resource it. Attendees will include the chairmen of the military services, which means that this meeting will focus on how [...]

I’m at the Grand Hyatt in Washington, where at 1 p.m., retired Gen. Jim Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, will deliver a keynote speech on the administration’s approach to peacemaking in the Middle East to the first annual conference assembled by J Street, the year-old pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby. He’ll be part of a panel [...]

Ben Smith has the news about the liberal Jewish group’s big event, which he suggests will “reassure skittish Democrats about the conference” after Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made a high-profile bail-out.

Here’s the guest list for today’s White House meeting to discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan strategy. New additions to the discussion: Amb. Susan Rice, a close Obama adviser turned ambassador to the U.N.; and Lt. Gen. Doug Lute, the “war czar” who will oversee interagency policy coordination. Wait, isn’t that Richard Holbrooke’s job…?

If it’s true, as reported, that the question of the CIA’s drone strikes against al-Qaeda in Pakistan is bolstering support for the so-called counterterrorism option in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy, then tomorrow’s meeting at the White House looks, from the attendance sheet, like it’ll debate precisely that issue. Here’s the just-released list of scheduled [...]

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, yesterday clarified that he accepts the call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and national security adviser Jim Jones to keep his advice to the president on Afghanistan strategy private. And his aides further specified to me that he doesn’t have any additional public speaking [...]

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the House speaker, waded into the media-manufactured controversy Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s London speech on “Charlie Rose” last night, according to Greg Sargent, who’s got the transcript:
“Let me say this about about General McChrystal, with all due respect,” Pelosi said, according to a transcript sent my way by a Pelosi aide. “His [...]