Noted.

THE TRIALS OF CHAS FREEMAN: The Zionist lobby roared--and President Obama blinked.

That's the story, in a nutshell, of the lobby's successful campaign against the appointment of Charles W. "Chas" Freeman Jr. as chair of the National Intelligence Council. Brilliant, iconoclastic and outspoken, Freeman boasts a long and distinguished record in national security, including service as former ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and as assistant secretary of defense during the Clinton administration. In February Admiral Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence--a long-time friend of Freeman's--chose him to head the NIC, where Freeman would have been the top analyst responsible for overseeing the production of national intelligence estimates (NIEs), among other things. Often controversial--recall the catastrophically wrong 2002 NIE on Iraq's (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction--the NIEs distill the work of sixteen spy agencies into a (they hope) coherent whole that provides guidance for policy-makers.

Freeman is not afraid to take controversial positions. He strongly opposed the war in Iraq, has spoken out against attacking Iran and supports talking to the Taliban. But his cardinal sin, according to the Zionist lobby and its neocon allies, is that he spoke out against Israeli excesses. "The brutal oppression of the Palestinians by the Israeli occupation shows no sign of ending," he said in a speech in 2007. "American identification with Israel has become total."

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.