Gen. Michael Hayden Has One Regret: Russia

Hayden, talking about his time in the Bush administration: "We were attempting to be fact-based and getting it wrong. That’s different from what’s going on now, where reality is something that some people believe they can create for their own convenience." Quote from this same magazine in 2004: "The [Bush] aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'" Here's the link to that article: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-pres... Translation: Hayden, and the GOP in general, have been creating their own reality for quite some time now. Nothing new about it. He's as complicit as Trump.

he says he and the intelligence agencies were trying to be fact based but got it wrong when it came to the iraq war; sounds more like he was part of an idiot agency than an intelligence agency

Close down the CIA. An institution whose longevity, when one considers its history of blunders, support of international crime, miscalculations, deceptions unmasked, analyses proven false, assassinations or, as often, failed attempts at them, made common knowledge, is incomprehensible. The least moral or ethical observer, the most sociopathic partisan of empire, should be astounded this agency continues to exist. CIA: The agency with the classified budget — much more than $80 billion — that so accurately predicted the fall of Cuba, the fall of the Soviet Union, gave us such clear warning of the 9/11 attacks, predicted the fall of the Shaw and mullahs takeover in Iran, the Egyptian rebellion along with all the other rebellion’s in the middle east and Africa, kidnaping and torture in Milan, Grenada, Vietnam, Chile, El Salvador, East Timor, Mogadishu, Bay of Pigs, Iran-Contra affair, Iraqi WMDs, Panama, and many more forgotten and kept secret we’ll never even know of. And took 10 years to find some crippled Arab with diabetes hiding in the mountains. http://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes-History-Tim-Weiner/dp/0307389006/ref=...

I've always taken what Hayden says with a grain of salt. You almost have to sift through what he says. As for why he is now on the media side, I believe he is a bit of a ham bone.

In my view the 2003 was a criminal enterprise and General Micheal Hayden and the whole Bush team are War Criminals. I have a campaign ribbon for both Iraq invasions , 1991 & 2003. The first was righteous for the the second I take the Nuremberg Defense, I was following Orders! Former Marine Lt. Col.William Scott Ritter Jr. was a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. Prior to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter stated that Iraq possessed no significant weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities

hayden says trump was a "useful idiot" for putin; sounds to me more like he and the democrats were "useful idiots" for being hoodwinked into thinking that trump couldn't win the election

That last question put the interview at an abrupt end, huh? Unlike the Trump administration, Rumsfeld and Cheney had everyone read from the same script. Very convincing "acting." I wonder if Hayden thinks Scooter Libbey is a leaker... How about a piece of yellowcake? I was told by a guy who-heard-from-a-guy who-heard-from-another-guy that it came from Niger by way of Iraq...

James Joyce had a somewhat better command of the English language than DT :-)

That last statement about being misled into the Iraq war doesn't pass the smell test. Now Netanyahu is trying to out-intelligence us into an Iran war. Wake up America, think before you vote.

So the mission of the NYT now extends to promoting the self-serving products of a torture apologist and illegal snooper on ordinary Americans in violation of the Constitution? Is that what subscribers like myself are paying for? Hayden has also engaged in deliberate deception against Congress over Gitmo, so take any warnings he gives about the current administration with a grain of salt. It’s articles like this, pathetically subservient to establishment rogues, that torpedo any moral authority the NYT aspires to.

"Uh, no. Sorry to disappoint. We were attempting to be fact-based and getting it wrong. That’s different from what’s going on now, where reality is something that some people believe they can create for their own convenience." Karl Rove really does ruin everything.

Uh. No, General. You actually need several more than just one regret. "Faulty intelligence" and "torture", and...and...are just a few. You and yours during the DubYa era most certainly DID miss more than one opportunity to disavow a convenient "reality [created] for their own convenience".

Think Progressive Jan 26, 2006, "The Bush administration has pulled out all the stops in attempting to defend the NSA’s warrantless domestic spying program. After speeches by President Bush and Attorney General Gonzales, Deputy Director of National Intelligence and former NSA Director General Michael Hayden took another crack at the defense in a speech on Monday. He’s not exactly the ideal choice to restore the administration’s credibility. As Think Progress documented back in December, Hayden misled Congress. In his 10/17/02 testimony, he told a committee investigating the 9/11 attacks that any surveillance of persons in the United States was done consistent with FISA. At the time of his statements, Hayden was fully aware of the presidential order to conduct warrantless domestic spying issued the previous year. But Hayden didn’t feel as though he needed to share that with Congress. Apparently, Hayden believed that he had been legally authorized to conduct the surveillance, but told Congress that he had no authority to do exactly what he was doing. The Fraud and False Statements statute (18 U.S.C. 1001) make Hayden’s misleading statements to Congress illegal." Morton Halperin Director of Policy Planning Staff at the State Department and Member National Security Council under President Clinton. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Johnson

The USA puts trillions in safety and control - both in military and in information! Really! it can lose!? - the lie and corruption disturbs. Your military need your money... never is enough for them...

Hayden is part of the problem. He's incompetent. He was head of the NSA when 911 occurred and head of the CIA during the unlawful warrantless wire tapping fiasco. How he has reinvented himself as some sort of truth sayer and watchdog for America is mind numbing.

"the “Muslim ban,” for example, was based on a view of an apocalyptic danger to the United States from immigrants. " No, it wasn't Mr. Hayden. And although the NYT and other outlets tend to forget about it, it was a reaction to the ISIS attacks at the Bataclan theater and elsewhere throughout France, which included an attempted assassination of their president. Yes, it was a knee-jerk response, and visceral more than practical, but every time the New York Times, and people like you omit the timing of Donald Trump's ill-worded proposal, you don't weaken his accusations of "fake news" being propagated, you validate them.

I love this guy.

I'm inclined to admire our intelligence agencies even though they are badly flawed as evidenced by the Shah, the Church hearings, hacks of the NSA and 9/11 - but the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. These many (17 ?) agencies likely have a great deal of information about U.S. citizens which in certain circumstances might wind up curtailing our freedom of speech, our right to assembly and even our right to vote.

I would like never to hear the euphemism, "enhanced interrogation", again. People for or against it need to be quite clear in their minds about what it is and that's torture.

Hayden wants us to believe that the intelligence that lead to the Iraq war was fact-based. That's rich. Republicans have been ignoring inconvenient facts for quite a while now. It did not start with Trump.

Excellent interview but the last question was the important and revealing one. I suggest that it is read first! I fully understand why many NYT readers dislike President Trump but I cannot understand why these same readers seem to overlook the chaos that President Bush and President Obama helped unleash throughout the Middle-East and North Africa. Trump is frequently gauche and embarrassing but he has not been anything like as dangerous internationally as his immediate predecessors.

I don’t condone Russian active measures against America and other western democracies. However, it can frequently be helpful to view conflict from the other side. In this case, the Russian viewpoint. As the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact governments were failing in 1989 and early 90s, the US promised no NATO expansion into those states. Of course, we violated that key promise. And, the US has been meddling in other countries elections for decades with disinformation and dirty tricks. Perhaps it’s time to look at our own behavior in context of current Russian meddling. Much of the world sees “American Exceptionalism” as pure hypocrisy without any consistent ideology. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones....

The apprentice - "James Joyce? an author with a male and female name, I don't read that stuff"

As you watch Mr. Hayden's face on TV, look for the tics that appear on his face. A good guess is that the number of tics is closely correlated with the number of lies he has uttered.

Michael Hayden is a sensible choice to lead a public rebuttal to the Trump administration's attack on intelligence. There is certainly room for criticism. I feel like "getting it wrong" is a gross understatement and a vast oversimplification. That said, Hayden has worked in multiple administrations from both parties and provides an experienced perspective on the intelligence world. A little distance from the current political landscape doesn't hurt either. The public is probably wise to listen to his opinion now.

I am happy to hear, even a past intelligence member admit that Trump and his WH lie so crimes are overlooked and policies are passed.

Notice how, in spite of his claims to the contrary, Hayden does a complete 180 on leaks in the span of two questions: When agency officials leak to denigrate Trump, it’s because they’ve been mistreated; when Edward Snowden leaks, it’s because he’s a criminal.

If you watched, the documentary, you would know that the enhanced interrogation techniques started under George Tenent, not the Gerneral. And if you watched that documentary, you would have found the General the most forthcoming of all the current (at that time) and past directors of the CIA and you would have also known that he fully understands that the public has to have some general awareness of the activities of the intelligence communities so that can be an adult discussion as to what the intelligence community should and shouldn't be doing, especially as it relates to its activities inside the United States.

Kinda got off easy on the torture question. That should not have been a multipart. Intelligence mistakes will always happen. How the information is obtained is a separate issue.

American intelligence has been under assault since we began as a nation and always from the same groups of fanatics who trust their personal beliefs and 'gut feelings' over empirical evidence and facts. The majority of GOP along with the fringe of the Democratic Party brought us to Trump-Pence, and as a Nation we will not survive them unless we, as a Nation, shun beliefs and comfortable feelings replacing them with factual reality on everything from climate change to religiosity to need for better school teaching literature and history along with STEM to universal healthcare to rebuilding Pax Americana (as Mr Macron stated recently).