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CIA Director Leon Panetta Speaks in Dearborn
Dearborn’s large Arab-American and Muslim community can play an essential role in accomplishing key CIA missions such as capturing Osama bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta told reporters tonight.
“I strongly believe that they are part of the American family,” Panetta said before speaking at a dinner in Dearborn.
“I want them to know that as a result I need them to be part of the effort at the CIA in order to protect the country.”
Panetta was to speak to about 150 Metro Detroit leaders at an invitation-only banquet at the Bint Jebail Banquet Hall in Dearborn. He said his visit is heavily focused on his efforts to increase the number of Central Intelligence Agency officers and analysts knowledgeable of Mideast languages and culture.
Bin Laden, a mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, has been “very effective in avoiding detection,” Panetta said.
“My view is that the more we have agents operating in that part of the world, the more we continue our operations to disrupt al-Qaida, the closer we are going to get to bin Laden.”
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said he welcomes Panetta’s visit and the CIA’s moves over the last two years to pump up recruitment of immigrants from the Mideast through presence at festivals and sponsorship of events.
“I don’t think the CIA is naïve and nor are we naïve,” Hamad said. Improving relations “is professional, it is constructive and it serves our common interests.”
Panetta, 71, served as chief of staff and director of management and budget under President Bill Clinton. He served eight terms in Congress as a Democrat representing California’s Monterey area. Earlier, he was a top aide to former New York Mayor John Lindsay and headed the U.S. Office for Civil Rights in the Nixon administration.
Some criticized his appointment to head the CIA because of his limited experience in the intelligence field.
John Radsan, a professor at William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul, Minn., said Panetta’s outreach efforts are “a very good idea” for several reasons.
First, it’s an important public relations exercise for the CIA to show those in the Dearborn area and the rest of the world that it is not targeting Muslims or Arabs, but sees members of those communities who are enemies to the United States as a tiny minority, Radsan said.
The visit could also assist recruitment of first-generation American immigrants and CIA understanding of the Mideast, Radsan said.
“We don’t understand the region very well,” said Radsan, a former president of the Iranian-American Bar Association who grew up in Metro Detroit. Those Panetta will meet with tonight “know things firsthand that would be very difficult to understand through study, even at the Ph.D. level.”
One of Panetta’s challenges will be to loosen CIA security clearance restrictions that make it difficult to recruit Americans with knowledge of Mideast languages and culture, Radsan said. For example, having relatives in home countries such as Iran or Lebanon can make it difficult to pass the security clearance, he said.
In reaching out to the Dearborn community, Panetta is pursuing some of the same goals that his CIA predecessors did, but “it’s easier for Panetta to do this because his president has emphasized transparency and reaching out,” Radsan said.
The date for Panetta’s visit has drawn controversy, though Hamad and CIA spokesman George Little said the date was chosen in consultation with community leaders.
Sunni Muslims recognize tonight as the “night of power” during the holy month of Ramadan, when many imams and devout Muslims spend the entire night in the mosque. Shia Muslims, who are more numerous in Metro Detroit, mark the “night of power” elsewhere on the Ramadan calendar.
Paul Egan
The Detroit News