Monday, September 7, 2009

Former Gov. George Pataki: Obama is Jeopardizing U.S. Security

(Newsmax).Eight years after the worst-ever terrorist attack on American soil, the man who was Governor of New York at the time, George Pataki fears that President Obama has weakened U.S. security.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Pataki says: “There is no question in my mind he is jeopardizing our security. You cannot turn terrorists loose, turn them back to where they came from and not expect them to engage in that activity again. We’ve already seen the example of a number of Guantanamo detainees who were released and returned to the battlefield, fighting our troops, fighting others who are trying to uphold the rule of law and defend freedom. So that clearly places us in jeopardy”

The three-term Republican governor also warns the investigation and possible prosecution of CIA terrorist interrogators by Obama’s attorney general will undermine America’s national security.

“When CIA officials, CIA agents and others who play a critical role in trying to gather the intelligence we need to prevent further attacks have to look over the shoulder about investigations and possible criminal charges, it certainly hampers our ability to get the necessary intelligence to protect ourselves,” he says.

Pataki suggests Obama is repeating the mistakes of the previous Democratic administration.

“Using the FBI and by derivation our criminal justice court system to look into this, this is exactly what happened in 1993,” he says.

“We had the towers bombed by an Islamic terrorist and rather than seeing it as an act of war by those who would attack us any chance they would get, we treated it as a criminal case, we had a trial, the trial went forward, the sheik was convicted, but it sent all the wrong messages to those who would attack us again.”

“The fact that the FBI and the CIA couldn’t share information I think in retrospect clearly was one of the major problems because the terrorists, the hijackers were here in the U.S. and the FBI had some information, the CIA had different information, but they could not coordinate. And that was a self-imposed Clinton administration restriction that had tragic consequences. I fear that too many of the actions of this Obama administration have the potential, let’s hope it never happens, but have the potential to open us up to further attacks.”

By contrast, he notes that since the 9/11 attacks the Bush administration prevented any more terror attacks on the U.S. homeland.

“So take a look at the past eight years,” Pataki says, “For all the uncertainty in the world, we were safe, we were not attacked again. I fear that the Obama administration’s policies are jeopardizing our security going forward.”

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"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty" (Churchill)