The Presidential Leadership Dilemma: Between the Constitution and a Political Party

8President Obama andCounterterrorism Policy

8 President Obama and Counterterrorism Policy When Campaign Pressures Meet Governing Imperatives Nancy Kassop and Steven R. Goldzwig As the Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama’s campaign speeches were laced with sharp criticism of President George W. Bush’s counterterrorism policy. Obama was consistent in his condemnation of indefinite detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo, harsh interrogation tactics amounting to torture, use of military commissions instead of federal courts for trial of terrorist suspects, extraordinary rendition to CIA “black sites,” warrantless domestic wiretapping in violation of FISA, and reliance on the state secrets doctrine to dismiss cases from the federal courts. He pledged, if elected, he would reverse these policies to insure that the United States would once again abide by international law abroad and enforce civil liberties protections at home. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama spoke eloquently, saying, “It’s time to restore our moral leadership by rejecting torture without equivocation; by closing Guantanamo; by restoring habeas corpus; and by again being that light of justice to dissidents in prison camps around the globe.”1 Recurring throughout his speeches were references to “restoring the adherence to 185 186 Nancy Kassop and Steven R. Goldzwig rule of law that helps us win the battle for hearts and minds” and to a foreign policy that would be “principled” and “pragmatic” and would reflect American values.2 Obama continually pressed the theme of the need for new leadership on national security during his campaign for the presidency. Time and again, he sought to assure the nation that an Obama presidency would be more open, more cooperative, less prone to war, and more committed to alternative ways of keeping the peace. Obama assured listeners, however , that this would not mean a soft-glove approach to those extremists bent on fomenting terror as a means of achieving their political goals. In August 2008, candidate Obama appeared before the national convention of the VFW and pledged: “As commander-in-chief, I will have no greater priority than taking out these terrorists who threaten America, and finishing the job against the Taliban.”3 Moreover, Obama seemed to want to usher in a new era of accountability and openness in the nation’s intelligence community. In October 2007, in an address delivered in Chicago at De Paul University, Obama promised to “turn the page on a growing empire of classified information, and restore the balance we’ve lost between the necessarily secret and the necessity of openness in a democratic society.”4 He pledged to employ intelligence “to make good policy,” not “manipulate it to sell a bad policy.”5 This, of course, redounded to his predecessor. Furthermore, Obama was intent on defining his presidency as one that would take every step possible to ensure that the nation would fully “turn the page on the imperial presidency that treats national security as partisan issue.”6 In Washington, D.C. on August 1, 2007, in an address at the Woodrow Wilson Center, titled “The War We Need to Win,” Obama delivered a lively, wide-ranging campaign speech that struck at the heart of the Bush administration’s miscues. He clearly demarcated key areas where the previous administration had overstepped its reach and argued that he would implement a new strategy in an effort to undo the damage that had been done. It was the most comprehensive statement on national security missteps that Obama had made on the campaign trail.7 But, even the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and the sufferings of those who found themselves detained in Guantanamo without trial seemed salvageable when exposed to Obama’s deft campaign rhetoric: “In the dark halls of Abu Ghraib and the detention cells of Guantanamo, we have compromised our most precious values. What could have been a call to a generation [9/11] has become an excuse for unchecked presidential power. A tragedy that united us was turned into a political wedge issue used to 187 President Obama and Counterterrorism Policy divide us. It’s time to turn the page; it is time to write a new chapter in our response to 9/11.”8 Later in the speech, Obama explained that part of initiating a “new chapter” is to “reject a legal framework that does not work.”9 Citing only one conviction at Guantanamo, Obama pledged to “close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions .”10 Obama concluded: “Our...