For PBS: The questions John Brennan should face

For my PBS column this week, I discuss what John O. Brennan should discuss in his hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The revelations this week suggest an intelligence community that has become badly unbalanced, in favor of action above all else. The CIA, in particular, has a fraught record when trying to understand the regions and countries it tries to influence…

The way the CIA veered sharply since 9/11 to favor operations, most recently kinetic operations, has left them unprepared to understand and therefore counter the growing, complex challenges in the world. The Senate should ask John O. Brennan to clarify just how he will pull the Agency back from the brink, and put it back to its original, balanced mission of both acting against but also understanding the world.

Read the rest over at PBS Need to Know.