David Petraeus

Feinstein, Petraeus Say Wartime Contractors Must Go

Susan Crabtree | September 13, 2011, 12:46PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

After the ten-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the intelligence community, consisting of everything from the CIA to the Homeland Security Department, is outsourcing too much of its work to private contractors and is breaking a pledge to reduce the number of private contractors hired to help conduct, collect and analyze information.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Intelligence Committee, pointed out the broken promise at a hearing Tuesday, noting that the intelligence community is not living up to a commitment to reduce private contractors by 5 percent a year.

"We had an agreement in 2009 to reduce [intelligence community] contractor numbers by 5 percent a year, but it's clear that progress has not been maintained and sufficient cuts are not being made," Feinstein told a joint-hearing of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to assess progress in U.S. intelligence gathering and analysis over the last ten years.

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Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame

New York Trial For Somali Terrorism Suspect Reignites Gitmo Debate

Susan Crabtree | July 6, 2011, 4:22PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is pushing back against GOP criticism of the Obama administration's decision to bring Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, the Somali man facing terrorism charges, to New York for trial.

Feinstein, an influential and respected voice on intelligence and national security issues, said the intelligence panel has been kept fully informed on Warsame's interrogations and the intelligence they produced, adding that she agreed with the decision to try him civilian court.

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Pakistan

Feinstein Wants Answers About What Pakistani Officials Knew About OBL

Susan Crabtree | May 10, 2011, 4:00PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) isn't relying on U.S. intelligence officials alone to find out whether the Pakistani government was helping harbor Osama bin Laden.

Feinstein, who chairs the Senate intelligence committee, told TPM she has "her own people looking into it" and will hold closed-door classified hearings on the increasingly frayed relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan soon.

Despite her deep concerns about what the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden's compound before a U.S. assault team raided it and killed the notorious al Qaeda leader, Feinstein tempered remarks Monday in which she questioned continuing to send billions of dollars in humanitarian and military aid to the country and said the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan "makes less and less sense."

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Navy Seals

Sen. Ayotte: I've Seen A Photo Of Slain Bin Laden

Susan Crabtree | May 4, 2011, 2:16PM

US Senator Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)

Update at 3:47 p.m.: Sen. Saxby Chambliss' office says he didn't show Ayotte the photo and he has not seen it himself.

Amid reports that the White House will not release a photo of a slain Osama bin Laden, a photo of bin Laden is circulating among some senators.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) tells TPM another senator showed her a photo of a deceased bin Laden with the understanding that it was an authentic photo the Navy Seals took of him after he was killed.

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Dianne Feinstein

Feinstein Slams Middle East Intelligence, Urges Caution On No-Fly Zone

Susan Crabtree | March 8, 2011, 4:06PM

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, harshly criticized the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community for failing to forecast the uprising in the Middle East and warned the White House not to intervene in Libya without international support.

"Our intelligence, and I see it all ... was woefully inadequate. [The unrest in] Tunisia was the only intelligence we got right," Feinstein told TPM Tuesday, adding that U.S. intelligence completely missed the instability in Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain.

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CIA/DNI/Intelligence

CIA Official: Obama Was Briefed On Egypt Instability Late Last Year

Susan Crabtree | February 3, 2011, 4:50PM

Associate Deputy Director of the CIA Stephanie O'Sullivan

The U.S. intelligence community warned President Obama about instability in Egypt late last year, according to a CIA official.

Stephanie O'Sullivan, the President's nominee for principal deputy director of national intelligence who currently serves as associate deputy director of the CIA, told the Senate intelligence committee Thursday that the agency briefed Obama. She did not indicate how specific the information they provided was.

"We warned of instability but not exactly where it would come from [and in what form]," she said. "That happened at the end of last year."

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