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Michael Leiter

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Michael Leiter, Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC).
National Counterterrorism Center seal. The NCTC is an organization within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Michael E. Leiter is currently the Director of the United States National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)[1], having served in the Bush Administration and been retained in the Obama Administration.[2]

Education and military service

Mr. Leiter received his B.A. from Columbia University in 1991. From 1991 until 1997, he served as a Naval Flight Officer and crewmember aboard EA-6B Prowlers in the U.S. Navy, participating in U.S., NATO, and UN operations in the former Yugoslavia and Iraq. He then earned his J.D. from Harvard Law School, where he graduated magna cum laude in 2000 and was the 113th President of the Harvard Law Review.[3] Leiter also served as a Harvard Law School human rights fellow with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Career

After law school, Leiter served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States, and to Chief Judge Michael Boudin of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

From 2002 until 2005, he served with the Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. At the Justice Department, Leiter prosecuted a wide variety of federal crimes, including narcotics offenses, organized crime and racketeering, capital murder, and money laundering.

Leiter then served as the Deputy General Counsel and Assistant Director of the President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (the "Robb-Silberman Commission"). While with the Robb-Silberman Commission, Leiter focused on reforms of the U.S. Intelligence Community, in particular the development of what is now the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Immediately prior to joining NCTC, Leiter served as the Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). In this role, Mr. Leiter assisted in the establishment of the ODNI and coordinated all internal and external operations for the ODNI, to include relationships with the White House, the Departments of Defense, State, Justice, and Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and Congress. He was also involved in the development of national intelligence centers, including NCTC and the National Counterproliferation Center, and their integration into the larger Intelligence Community. In addition, he served as an intelligence and policy advisor to the Director of National Intelligence and his Principal Deputy.

He became director of the NCTC in 2007, and was asked to stay on by the Obama administration in 2009.

Controversy

Under Leiter's service, the NCTC was publicly criticized for failing to identify the threat posed by a known extremist, Umar Farouk Abdulmatallab, who on Christmas Day 2009 succeeded in boarding a Delta airplane in Amsterdam rigged with an explosive device that failed to detonate over Detroit, Michigan. Abdulmatallab was wrestled down by a passenger amidst a smokey fire which put an end to the incident.

In an article printed by the New York Times on 31 December 2009,[4] the agency, which was stood up specifically to coordinate counterterrorism information, was said to have failed to accomplish its mission, even where several valid leads were available and known among multiple intelligence agencies, including information directly communicated to the CIA by the Abdulmatallab's father who feared his son had been radicalized. Though Michael Leiter was not himself mentioned, the New York Times piece described the NCTC as the weak link in the series of significant intelligence operations.[5]

On January 2, 2010, Leiter issued the following statement. "The failed attempt to destroy Northwest Flight 253 is the starkest of reminders of the insidious terrorist threats we face. While this attempt ended in failure we know with absolute certainty that Al-Qa’ida and those who support its ideology continue to refine their methods to test our defenses and pursue an attack on the Homeland. Our most sacred responsibility is to be focused on our mission—detecting and preventing terrorist attacks from happening on our soil and against U.S. interests. The American people expect and deserve nothing less."

The New York Daily News reporter, James Gordon Meek, issued a story on 7 January stating that Leiter remained on a ski holiday until "several days after Christmas" quoting two U.S. Officials. The article reported that "people have been grumbling that he didn't let a little terrorism interrupt his vacation". On balance, it was stated that "Leiter has long been well-regarded" and "President Obama, himself, stayed in Hawaii [on vacation] until January 4". There was no reference to Leiter conducting investigation or evaluation from his remote, vacation site.[6]

The Daily News story by Meek was inaccurate and was updated in the Daily News the next day, ABC news Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper reported that Leiter was indeed at his post at the NCTC during the events of December 25th, 2009. In the report, Denis McDonough, National Security Staff Chief of Staff, said that “Leiter was -- throughout the events of December 25, 2009 -- indeed at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia, and intimately involved in all aspects of the nation’s response to the attempted terrorist attack -- to include coordinating intelligence, examining terrorist watch-listing, and briefing Members of Congress.” He Continued, "Director Leiter engaged in regular, repeated, and extended classified discussions with the White House, the President’s National Security Staff located in Hawaii, the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security, various members of Congress and their staffs, and of course the National Counterterrorism Center.”[7]

References

  1. ^ NCTC bio Retrieved 4/20/09
  2. ^ Aspen Institute speech introduction by Clark Ervin, The Aspen Institute, Washington, DC, April 9, 2009. Retrieved 4/20/09.
  3. ^ Harvard University Gazette Feb. 25, 1999. Retrieved 4/20/09.
  4. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31intel.html?th&emc=th New York Times "Shadow of 9/11 Is Cast Again"
  5. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/us/31intel.html?th&emc=th New York Times "Shadow of 9/11 Is Cast Again"
  6. ^ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/01/07/2010-01-07_antiterror_chief_took_ski_pass_remained_on_slopes_after_christmas_bomb_attempt.html accessdate=2010-01-07
  7. ^ http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/01/wagons-circle-around-nctc-director-leiter-under-fire.html


External links

Preceded by Acting Director/Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
2007 - Present 		Succeeded by
Incumbent
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