CIA bin Laden Hunter Tracks Senate Seat

The man who led a CIA team on the hunt for Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in 2001 is on a much different mission today.

Gary Berntsen is out to capture the New York U.S. Senate seat held since 1998 by Chuck Schumer.  Berntsen says Schumer is guilty of helping an administration whose foreign policy is based on apology and appeasement.

“Look at Iran and their program to achieve a nuclear weapon,” Berntsen said. “The Obama administration’s policy has been a failed one, in my opinion. The U.S. should have a policy of regime change for the government of Iran. I don’t mean we take military action against them, but support opposition groups that want to bring on democratic change there.”

Berntsen also believes the president has taken the wrong approach on North Korea and Israel. While the administration is trying to engage with the erratic leadership of North Korea, it hedged on the historic friendship with Israel, Berntsen claims.

And he accuses his opponent of being part of the problem.

“You have members of Congress that will vote for programs for Israel. They’ll say, like Senator Schumer, that they have a 100 percent rating with AIPAC,” Berntsen said, referring to the powerful lobbying group, the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee. “But at the same time, they let the president hammer [Israel].”

Berntsen argues that President Obama has pressured Israel to “compromise on its own security” on the issue of settlements and Jerusalem and humiliated Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by making him enter the White House through “the back door” during their first meeting in March.

(Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren, in an interview with the Jewish Telegraph Agency, denied the reported snub.)

In the final analysis, though, Berntsen says the U.S.’s biggest foreign policy failure in the Middle East has been Iran, and that causes problems for Israel.

“These things are all linked,” he said, adding that if the U.S. could successfully isolate Iran while assuring it will never be able to build a nuclear weapon, the Middle East picture would change for the better. But if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, then Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other countries will want them for self-defense. He said Israel’s nuclear arsenal, which the U.S. officially does not acknowledge, does not concern him because it is for self defense.

“If the neighboring states around Israel all put their weapons down, there would be peace. If Israel put its weapons down there would be genocide,” he said.

Berntsen served as a CIA field operative for more than two decades, a career that included station chief tours and counterterrorism operations in Africa and the Middle East.
 
Berntsen led “Jawbreaker,” the CIA’s paramilitary forces, at the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. In December 2001, he commanded the CIA’s force in the battle of Tora Bora, the mountain stronghold where intelligence sources believed Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders were holed up.

Berntsen wrote a book on the campaign entitled "Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander.” Subsequent works include "The Walk-In," a novel about a planned terrorist attack on the United States, and “Human Intelligence, Counterterrorism, and National Leadership: A Practical Guide."

Now retired from the CIA, Berntsen is the president of The Berntsen Group, which provides security services to clients around the world using a staff of former senior U.S. intelligence and federal law enforcement officials. If he’s elected to the Senate, however, Berntsen said he will “shut down” the business.

Berntsen has picked up the endorsement of Rep. Michelle Bachman, R-Minn., a key leader of the “Tea Party” movement. In a statement released only days ago, according to Politico, Bachman said Berntsen’s “record of public service and leadership in the military and intelligence communities is impressive. Gary's story clearly shows his dedication to our country.”

On the other side of the race, Schumer has the weight of the Democratic Party and Obama going for him.

Schumer -- who has been in the Senate a dozen years and before that served in the House of Representatives -- has easily outpaced Berntsen in fundraising. According to the Center for Responsive Politics’ OpensSecrets.org site, Berntsen had raised just over $155,000 as of July 9 compared to $17 million for the Schumer campaign.