Symposium discussion turns into heated debate

What began as a "coffee-table discussion" between Director of National Intelligence Mike McConell and political science professor Steven David soon devolved into a tense back-and-forth Wednesday afternoon, with frequent jabs over issues such as waterboarding, warrantless wiretapping and nuclear proliferation.

McConnell signaled his expectation that the sit-down with David, sponsored by the Foreign Affairs Symposium (FAS) before overflow crowds in Shriver Hall, would become testy early on.

"I suspect that if Professor David has his way I'll likely be on the nightly news. If I have my way, this would never have happened," he quipped in his introduction.

Twenty minutes later the light-hearted mood had quickly dissipated when David, the discussion moderator, began posing tougher-than-expected questions.

David brought up the controversial issue of waterboarding as an interrogation technique. Many human rights organizations classify the technique, which the Central Intelligence Agency employed in the past, as torture.

When asked if he considered waterboarding a form of torture, McConnell replied, "[Waterboarding] is not on our list of techniques. If it was not illegal and would prevent an attack on a city, I would be inclined to use it."

In at least one instance when waterboarding was employed, he pointed out, "I would be willing to say that [the information we obtained] saved the lives of people known by people in this room."

However, McConnell emphasized that the intelligence community "will abide by the laws of the nation," which banned waterboarding as an acceptable interrogation technique.

When responding to David's suggestion that many Americans lost faith in the intelligence community after the Cold War, McConnell said, "It's convenient for a professor or a journalist to say, 'you didn't predict the collapse of the Soviet Union.' However, we won the Cold war."

David also directed the discussion toward the red tape that many applicants, including Hopkins students, experience when applying to jobs in intelligence agencies and departments. The ineptness of the intelligence community's human resources department, David said, "makes the Baltimore Department of Motor Vehicles look efficient."

"It can take anywhere from four months to a year to 18 months to hire," McConnell agreed, "I'd like to get that down to a month."

After providing the audience with his personal e-mail address in case they experience any problems with their applications, he joked, "hopefully we're better than the Department of Motor Vehicles. I wish you good luck when you renew your license."

The event's professional though heated, atmosphere suffered a brief interruption when Jerry Raitzyk, a representative from the Network of Spiritual Progressives, began reading selections from government documents addressing waterboarding and refused to give up the microphone during the question and answer session at the event's conclusion.

"[McConnell] wouldn't let me finish what I was saying there," Raitzyk said after the discussion.

An FAS member took the microphone out of Raitzyk's hands when he called the director "arrogant," motivating Raitzyk to proclaim that he did not need a microphone to be heard. There were no further interruptions to the discussion.

McConnell took the opportunity to promote renewing legislation that would allow the U.S. government to wiretap, without obtaining a warrant, foreign communications passing through the United States.

"Think of wireless as the on- and off-ramp of a 6,000-lane highway," he said. "Communications from Pakistan to Iraq likely could pass through the United States."

McConnell considers the tools the Protect America Act of 2007 provides essential to protecting the United States, although the Act expired Feb. 17, 2008, and officials must now go through the court system to obtain warrants.

McConnell also briefly answered audience questions regarding terrorist acquisition of weapons of mass destruction and the presence of Al Qaeda and sectarian violence in Iraq.

"Everything went well," Professor David said when asked for his reaction to the event. "I wish we had more time for follow-ups. I don't agree with everything [Director McConnell] said - that was apparent," he added, smiling. "However, it's an opportunity to hear from high-ranking officials. I wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth."

Hopkins students' reactions to the hour-long discussion were mixed.

"This is a great event," said Jonathan Jacobs, a FAS staff member. "This is the first time we've been in the national news this year."

Junior Vincent Domestico agreed. "Dr. David's questions touched on some great points," he said.

"It was engaging," junior Dave Rose said. "And it's great to have a cabinet member coming to talk to Johns Hopkins students for free."

Freshmen Harry Black, however, disapproved of McConnell's somewhat impolite attitude toward David.

"I felt that [McConnell's] tactics were questionable in that he attempted to belittle the intelligence of someone at least as intelligent as he is, " he said.

Freshman Caroline Berger was also disappointed with McConnell's statements. "I thought he was biased toward the work he was doing," she said, though she acknowledged that she expected that some bias would be natural.

McConnell is a retired vice admiral of the U.S. Navy. He served first as director of the National Security Agency and then as senior vice president for the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton before his appointment to director of National Intelligence in February 2007.