Hoekstra: CIA Workers Don't Like Obama

The intelligence community takes a dim view of President Barack Obama, says former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., who once chaired the House Intelligence Committee. “Dissent and dislike” are common attitudes toward the president among Central Intelligence Agency workers, Hoekstra told HumanEvents.com.

Pete Hoekstra: President Obama promised, but didn't deliver. (Getty Images Photo)

Obama’s reversals since taking office may have triggered the backlash, said Hoekstra, who noted that Obama now supports Bush programs he’d once maligned.

“The Obama administration has acknowledged that enhanced interrogation techniques helped get the information that led to the successful raid on bin Laden’s compound,” he said. “And President Obama has never closed down the U.S. operation at Guantanamo, as candidate Obama promised to do over and over again. Under Obama, the U.S. has continued the policy of unlimited detentions and the use of military tribunals.” He also cited Obama’s extension of the Patriot Act.

It no longer makes sense for Obama’s Justice Department to continue investigations into the Bush-era treatment of terror prisoners and suspects now that he has embraced those same tactics, said Hoekstra, who was chairman of the House Intelligence Committee between 2002 and 2006.