The fact that Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Hegseth have accepted Trump's offer of appointment to the positions of Director of National Intelligence (DNI) and Secretary of Defense (SecDef) respectively, is a slap in the face to every member of the intelligence and military communities who ever served. These nominees may look pretty and sound glib but their shallowness is apparent and dangerous.
An apt analogy: Finish elementary school and then accept an appointment as a university president.
Having spent 13 years as a commissioned officer on active duty in the Regular Army and several decades working intelligence in myriad capacities, the lack of experience of Gabbard and Hegspeth takes my breath away. Their overinflated sense of having sufficient experience and knowledge flies in the face of my lived experience as an Army Infantry platoon leader to eventually work as a civilian at various times at the level of the Office of the Vice-president (National Partnership for Reinventing Government) , the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Defense POW/MIA Office - DPMO) , and the National Military Joint Intelligence Center within the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I would not feel remotely qualified to be either Director of National Intelligence (DNI) or Secretary of Defense (SecDef) even with my substantial work in the intelligence and military fields.
I actually knew a DNI, Air Force Lieutenant General James Clapper whose breadth of experience in the intelligence field was legendary. Clapper was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time I knew him. He later retired from the Air Force and the DNI position, regularly appearing then on cable news channels such as CNN as an expert in intelligence matters. This is the caliber of individual who should be sought for future DNIs. Gabbard does not even come close.
Although Gabbard served on several congressional committees relating to the military and foreign affairs during her time in the House (and to some very limited extent during her military service), such exposure is insufficient to have a grasp of the myriad aspects of intelligence let alone in sufficient detail to be able to direct or guide other agencies or assess intelligence products. Knowledge and skills like that take years or decades to develop while working in the various intelligence agencies. She doesn't know what she doesn't know; her decisions and assessments, were she to be approved, would bear the mark of that ignorance - half-assed results and outright errors. And wait until she finds herself one-on-one with experienced, counterpart intelligence chiefs from other countries, MI6 of Britain, the DGSE of France or the Mossad of Israel . Her ignorance will surface immediately and the other intelligence chiefs will eventually withhold classified information developed by their own nations for fear that in Gabbard's stupidity, deviousness or downright ignorance of her role that she may reveal that information to others and compromise their own extremely sensitive intelligence sources.
That is the reason for having thorough background checks on any candidate for the Director of National Intelligence, one of the most sensitive posts in the U.S. Government. I am not talking about plans to have laughable background investigations by private firms as Trump desires. To clear up issues having to do with Gabbard's foreign contacts, no matter the country, the Federal Bureau of Investigation must be involved. During my career I had to undergo several “special” background checks that took four months or more to complete. Every five years thereafter an additional background check was initiated This was called a “bring up” to discover anything that may have arisen in the previous period. Beyond that, polygraphs were required for continued work within special access programs. Any DNI will have access to all of these programs and therefore should be thoroughly vetted, not only to insure suitability to work with intelligence information but also to insure that not only a president but also our allies are confident they are working with a DNI who can be trusted and not open to blackmail or other forms of coersion.
As for Hegspeth, his 13 years of National Guard experience up to the rank of major confers precious little knowledge of the military at high echelons. I will not disparage his service as an Infantry officer unless it becomes evident that he engaged in activities contrary to his oath of office as some recent reporting has suggested. As mentioned above, I also had 13 years of active duty service, including a tour in Vietnam (1968/69) as a HUMINT (intelligence derived from human sources) officer, before resigning as a major in the late 1970s. However, I was able to work at echelons and gain experience well above that of a field grade infantry officer. By the time I left the service I had held positions on the tripartite (US, French, British) Allied Staff, Berlin, in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence for the US Commander, Berlin, in a detachment of the then 500th Military Intelligence Group (Bangkok) and finally in the Intelligence and Security Command at Ft. Meade, MD. Hegseth's resume suggests nothing in the way of the broad experience necessary, outside the realm of the Infantry, that prepares a person for functioning at high levels of government.
What is particularly abhorrent to me as a war veteran is Hegseth’s rejection of the Geneva Conventions on warfare and treatment of prisoners that are, as signed treaties, laws of the United States. These despicable statements by Hegseth harken back to the likes of John Woo, John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Robert Gonzales under then President Bush when they, for all intents and purposes, threw out these treaties to accommodate their torture/black sites program. This treaty violation put our own military in danger of being treated in the same unconscionable manner while not enhancing our ability to obtain information through violent and illegal means. Without a doubt, Bush and his entourage committed war crimes. Now Hegseth is in agreement with them and thus promoting the commission of further war crimes.
Hegseth also wants women out of combat roles in the military. Given the nature of warfare today, this is an impossibility. 60 years ago when I initially studied military science, the instruction was based on a WWII model with a front line (called the FEBA - Forward Edge of the Battle Area) which gave birth to the notion of a relatively safe “rear area” where exposure to hostile fire was minimal. Today that model is deader than the Dodo. Even in Vietnam, there were no front lines. I spent my last six months in My Tho, a small town in the Mekong Delta where I led an intelligence collection team in support of Riverine and 9th Infantry Division forces. Mortar rounds landed near our quarters/office several times. I was shot at while on the roof of our small building at midday. Combat roles are now even murkier. Women are integrated at all levels in all the armed services and have proved themselves well in combat roles. Women are successfully completing the former “macho” courses like Ranger and Airborne [NB: Hegseth is neither Airborne nor Ranger qualified]. Hegseth is mourning a perceived loss of machismo in the ranks and therefore promoting a false notion that “girls” cannot or should not perform hazardous duties, including the combat arms. Believe me, “the girls” can… watch THIS, for example.
In conclusion, I would like to add that dealing with senior military and civilian leaders in the intelligence community and in the Pentagon, or at the combatant command echelon in general, is to experience a totally different level of exactitude. It is nothing like briefing or contributing during a meeting with an infantry battalion commander or leadership of a National Guard unit. My experience (based on giving briefings to Amb Paul Bremer, Gen Norman Schwartzkopf, Gen Creighton Abrams and several Directors of DIA to name a few) is that most senior leaders do not miss anything you say and remember everything you have said. Their questions are quick to come and penetrating. Woe be it to whomever tries to wing it. You will not last long. I do not see a great future for either Hegseth or Gabbard should these nominations go through. They will be totally out of their element and the U.S will bear the consequences.
"The Greeks of the classical period looked on the rulers of Persia or Egypt and their provincial imitators in the Greek world as at once, frivolous and dangerous because, in Greek Opinion, they were motivated not by the moral consensus of a responsible community but by the whims of what today we would call a collection of celebrities." *
The appointments of Hegseth and Gabbard fit well within this ancient Greek view of the world. They have been set in motion by a would-be ruler who lacks any understanding of a responsible community and like the would-be ruler, will represent the frivolous and dangerous whims of a collection of manifestly and massively unqualified celebrities. Sadly, both Gabbard and Hegseth are “qualified” for the jobs Trump wants from them: to execute the mandates of the new Trumpian Reich.
Comments by Readers
M. Lynda Hanscome
Dec 01, 2024Thank you, Dick, for explaining this in plain language.
God help us.
Randy Petty
Dec 01, 2024Theoretically the Senate could block these cabinet appointments 😊
Michael Riordan
Dec 01, 2024Yes, indeed, the Senate SHOULD block these appoinments, not “could,” but will they?
To me that’s the $64 billion dollar question today.
Abe Jacobson
Dec 02, 2024Thanks to Dick Conoboy for asking the “Duh!” obvious question, why are manifestly unqualified candidates for cabinet jobs not mortified with shame? Many commentators have lambasted Hegseth and Gabbard as unqualified, but to the best of my knowledge, only Conoboy has asked the most basic meta-question.
Additionally, let’s look at would have been (in a normal world) a showstopper for Hegseth and Gabbard. That is, ability to have a security clearance. I had a Q clearance for 35 years of my career. Nobody with Hegseth’s drinking problem and behavioral issues, and nobody with Gabbard’s well documented entanglements with countries doing us harm, would have had a chance of a snowball in Hell of getting a security clearance back in the day of normalcy.
Thanks again Dick for saying the previously unsaid.
Abe Jacobson
Dec 02, 2024One further comment on Conoboy’s article: Read today’s online addition of Jane Mayer’s article in the New Yorker, detailing Hegseth’s sordid track record of managerial incompetence, drunkenness, and sexual harrassment (and allegedly worse) against women in his employ.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history
Dick Conoboy
Dec 02, 2024Thanks to Abe Jacobson for calling our attention to the recent article in the New Yorker magazine and therefore expanding the information available on Pete Hegseth.
I purposely did not go into any questionable/disqualifying background info on either of these two nominees. My intent was to use the example of my experience as a point of comparison to demonstrate how shallow their Army experiences were. They may have performed admirably but they certainly lack any appreciably extensive experience that would minimally support being qualified for becoming DNI or SecDef.
Unfortunately, should either or both of these individuals be confirmed to their appointments, the security clearance issue would very likely and quickly become moot as Trump has shown no reluctance in overriding the recommendations of government investigators and granting clearances to the most unsavory and disreputable of his entourage. One’s mind turns immediately to the security issues surrounding Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose security clearance had to be granted by Trump after investigations showed his foreign contacts to be problematic, making him vulnerable to blackmail.
[NB: In the way of explanation, a Q Clearance is one given by the Department of Energy that is equivalent to Top Secret in other areas of the federal government and particularly within the the Department of Defense.]