Some Encouraging CT Appointments

By Douglas Farah

If recent the recent Washington Post story on filling key counter-terrorism posts is accurate, the best news (besides the fact that the posts are actually being filled) is that Air Force Gen. Charles Wald is slated to take over the National Counterterrorism Center. The Center is supposed to be a clearinghouse for terrorism-related intelligence, but has not been really operational yet.

Wald, currently deputy commander of the U.S. European Command, is one of the few leaders I have dealt with who understands the threat posed by the failing states and nonstate armed groups that are growing across the broad areas EUCOM is responsible for. Wald has been particularly outspoken on the terrorist threat in West Africa, and was one of the first senior officials with access to intelligence to publicly confirm my findings on al Qaeda's diamond operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. He has spoken eloquently about the terrorist threats in a region that is largely off the radar of counter-terror discussions, despite the long record of al Qaeda in sub-Saharan Africa, both East and West.

At a time when the counter-terrorism efforts seem to often be sinking into the swamp of bureaucratic infighting and leaderless drift, the Wald appointment is heartening. It is amazing that senior counter-terrorism positions at the CTC, State, Treasury and elsewhere are still vacant when no new administration was elected. It seems from the outside like a lack of interest and political will to really do what necessary to keep the counter-terrorism efforts from the same fate as the war on drugs and countless other efforts that fall off the policy radar screen and languish with little real impact. For my full blog, go here.

TrackBack