John M. Poindexter took issue yesterday with critics of his Pentagon efforts to develop new data scanning systems and an online futures market for flushing out terrorists and predicting Middle East developments, saying the programs had fallen victim to ignorance, distortion and Washington's "highly-charged political environment."
In a letter of resignation ending a controversial 20-month Pentagon tenure, Poindexter pressed his case for employing new technologies to discern terrorists' plans in such everyday transactions as credit card purchases, travel reservations and e-mail. He said innovative approaches are needed to overcome the historic barriers among U.S. intelligence agencies and gain access to stores of information not available to the government.
John M. Poindexter decries Washington's "highly-charged political environment."
(Alex Brandon -- AP)
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Insisting he had been mindful of the privacy concerns that critics in Congress and elsewhere raised about his work, the retired rear admiral cited the parallel efforts he made to study ways of protecting the rights of U.S. and foreign citizens. But Poindexter complained that attempts to explain his programs often proved fruitless. "Although we have tried to be very open about our work, there is still a great deal of misunderstanding," he wrote.
The five-page letter, submitted yesterday and made available to The Washington Post, provided Poindexter's first opportunity to address critics after being ordered by Pentagon officials last autumn to avoid public comment because, he was told, he had become too much of a "lightning rod."
Senior defense officials reported Poindexter's intention to resign his post as head of the Pentagon's Office of Information Awareness two weeks ago. The news followed Poindexter's involvement in an ill-fated plan to launch an online futures market for betting on Middle Eastern developments that was advertised as a vehicle for profiting on assassinations and other terrorist acts. For months before that, he had been embroiled in another controversy over a computerized surveillance plan to scour travel, financial, medical and other databases to penetrate terrorist networks.
His departure was demanded by lawmakers who questioned his judgment as well as his regard for privacy issues, and who argued that Poindexter's history as a central participant in the Iran-contra affair of the 1980s made him a poor choice to manage such a politically sensitive project.
"I was not anxious to come back into government," Poindexter wrote his boss, Anthony Tether, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), "but in discussions with you and others concluded that was probably the best way to explore research and development of information technologies and concepts to help solve the enormous problems of combating terrorism." He added that he had wanted to step down "for months now" but had stayed longer at Tether's request.
"I regret we have not been able to make our case clear and reassure the public that we do not intend to spy on them," he wrote, adding that he had "done all that I can do under the circumstances" and so would be leaving on Aug. 29.
The letter contained no acknowledgement of personal error. In the case of the futures trading plan, he said, an unauthorized decision by an outside contractor -- the small California firm Net Exchange -- to post "some extremely bad examples" on the program's Web site gave critics ammunition to distort the effort as a proposed market in terrorism. The examples included the possibility of betting on the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat or the overthrow of Jordan's monarchy.
"In the highly-charged political environment of Washington, positions on highly complex issues are taken and debated using glib phrases, 'sound bites' and symbols," said Poindexter, who turned 67 yesterday. "I doubt that many people have read our report to Congress to get a balanced view of what we have been trying to do."
A DARPA spokesman said the agency had no comment on the resignation or on the future of Poindexter's programs. That future remains clouded by a provision in the Senate's version of the 2004 defense appropriations bill, which would eliminate funding for a number of Poindexter's programs. The House version has no such provision, so the matter will be decided this autumn in conference.
Getting the DARPA job in January 2002 had been something of a comeback for Poindexter. He was national security adviser to President Ronald Reagan during the Iran-contra scandal, in which sales of arms to Iran were used to finance rebels fighting in Nicaragua at a time such assistance was banned by Congress.
Poindexter was convicted in 1990 on five felony counts, including lying to Congress, destroying documents and obstructing congressional inquiries into the affair. Although the conviction was overturned in 1991 -- on grounds that Poindexter had been granted immunity from prosecution as a result of his testimony before Congress -- it still troubled many in Congress.
