Dennis Cutler Blair

Dennis Cutler Blair, Admiral is the Former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. He's headed two Council on Foreign Relations tasks forces, on U.S. Policy Toward China and on an Indonesia-focused project on "Peace and Progress in [West] Papua." In late 2008, Blair held positions at Dickinson College and the Army War College, as well as the National Bureau of Asian Research.

In December 2008, Blair was named as a likely candidate for President-elect Barack Obama's Director of National Intelligence. In January 2009, Obama officially nominated him to the position.


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Controversy
The U.S.-based East Timor and Indonesia Action Network objected to Blair's possible choice as U.S. intelligence chief. "As Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command from February 1999 to May 2002 Blair was the highest ranking U.S. military official in the region during the final period of violence in East Timor, as Indonesian security forces and their militias killed, looted, and destroyed the country's infrastructure," the group stated, in a press release. "In April 1999, Blair met in Jakarta with General Wiranto, then the Defense Minister and the commander of Indonesian forces, just days after dozens of refugees in a Catholic church in the town of Liquica, East Timor were hacked to death by machetes by militia members backed by the military. ... Instead of pressuring Wiranto to shut down the militias, Blair promised new military assistance, which the military 'took as a green light to proceed with the militia operation.'"

Blair also served as "the Central Intelligence Agency's first associate director of military support, and served a tour on the National Security Council," noted the New York Times. Blair served as director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon, and "commanded the Kitty Hawk Battle Group and the destroyer Cochrane. In civilian life, Mr. Blair was president of the Institute for Defense Analyses, a nonprofit largely financed by the federal government to analyze national security issues for the Pentagon, from 2003 to 2006." Blair stepped down from the IDA "amid concerns that his positions on several corporate boards constituted a conflict of interest."

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Barack Obama
 * Barack Obama/White House Staff
 * Council on Foreign Relations
 * Institute for Defense Analyses

External articles

 * Bradley Simpson, "How Obama's New Intelligence Chief Ran Interference for Indonesia's Butchers: The Skeletons in Dennis Blair's Closet," CounterPunch, December 26-28, 2008.
 * Gregg K. Kakesako, "Former Pacific commander 'intense'," Star Bulletin (Honolulu, Hawaii), January 6, 2009.
 * Allan Nairn, "Admiral Dennis Blair. Prospective Obama Appointee Aided Perpetrators of 1999 Church Killings," News and Comment blog, January 6, 2009.