Obama’s War Promises have been easier to make than to keep.
Striking the right balance between justice and security remains the most neuralgic point in American politics. Campaigning for the White House in 2008, Barack Obama insisted that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney had gotten it badly wrong: They were trampling on civil liberties with torture, warrantless surveillance, and blanket secrecy, while at the same time violating duly enacted statutes, even the Constitution. Obama was determined to set things right.
How well has he succeeded? That is the question the New York Times reporter Charlie Savage attempts to answer in this comprehensive account of the fierce legal battles within the Obama administration over counterterrorism policy and matters of war and peace. As Savage tells the story, Obama began his presidential tenure with grand promises: He vowed to end two wars, ban torture, close Guantánamo within a year, and run the most transparent administration in American history. But as the new president was soon to discover, talking about change was easier than bringing it about.
Within weeks of assuming office, writes Savage, Obama “had already started to assemble an ambiguous record” in dismantling policies of his predecessor that he had declared illegal, immoral, and unwise. Though he banned torture, his new CIA chief was defending the practice of “extraordinary rendition,” shipping captives off to countries where, despite diplomatic assurances, they might be subjected to less-than-tender methods of interrogation. He retained military commissions for trying terror suspects, promising only to review their rules. His Justice Department was invoking the state secrets privilege to toss lawsuits out of court, including those involving torture and warrantless surveillance.
Writing for the Times early in Obama’s first term, Savage reported that “the Obama administration is quietly signaling continued support for . . . major elements of its predecessor’s approach to fighting al Qaeda.” Thanks to that story and a flurry of others like it, civil libertarians and liberal pundits began to squawk about backsliding and betrayal. On the other side of the political divide, supporters of George W. Bush’s counter-terrorism measures began to crow, charging hypocrisy and claiming vindication. Whether the incoming fire was launched from left or right, it plainly hit its target in the White House: “We are charting a new way forward,” insisted a top Obama aide to Savage. But the reality suggested otherwise.
A foiled terror attack on Christmas Day 2009 made jettisoning Bush’s counter-terrorism toolkit a dangerous proposition. Flying aboard an airliner into Detroit, a Nigerian follower of al Qaeda attempted to set off a bomb hidden in his underwear. When it fizzled instead of detonating, passengers were spared a calamity—but the White House was not. Janet Napolitano, in charge of the Department of Homeland Security, elicited derision with her nonreassuring assurance to the public that the “system worked.” It plainly had not worked; only dumb luck and the quick action of Abdulmutallab’s seatmates had saved the day. But Obama did not allow the episode to interrupt his Hawaii vacation. Instead of heading back to Washington, he set off to the Kaneohe oceanfront to play golf. Conservatives were outraged. The public was alarmed.
Under the pressure of politics at home and terror threats abroad, writes Savage, “the reformist side of Obama’s national security legal policy was starting to crack.” Out was transparency about counterterrorism surveillance. Out was the plan to try 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a Manhattan courtroom. Out was the promised closure of Guantánamo within a year. In was intensified drone warfare. In were more secrets about key decisions. In were leak prosecutions when state secrets got out.
