The former CIA director John Brennan has described Donald Trump’s travel ban on visitors from Muslim countries as “simplistic and misguided”, predicting it would be counterproductive if implemented.



Brennan, who was director of central intelligence from March 2013 until the last day of the Obama administration on 20 January this year, was highly critical of a range of Trump policies and actions in an interview with the BBC Newsnight programme aired on Monday night.

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He said the administration’s use of the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” served to legitimise terrorists in their own eyes, and warned that the president’s disparagement of US intelligence agencies would hurt morale and recruitment.

The former spy chief reserved his most critical remarks for the executive order (EO) stopping entry to the US for refugees and suspending entry for travellers from six predominantly-Muslim countries. Two successive versions of the ban have been halted by courts, most recently in Hawaii and Maryland, and the administration is appealing against those rulings.

“Their proposed EO really I think was too simplistic and misguided because it was identifying one’s nationality as being responsible for a potential terrorist act,” Brennan said. “It is wrongheaded and I don’t think it would enhance the security of our country.”

Asked if he thought the ban would be counterproductive for US security, Brennan said: “I do, because a lot of citizens from those countries who have very legitimate reasons to travel to the US are really going to see this as reflecting a very different tone from the US … To me, I think they’re going to see that as profiling specific nationalities.”

He was also dismissive of the Trump administration’s preference for the term “radical Islamic terrorism” in describing what it sees as the principle threat to the US.

“When you refer to the terrorist as following radical Islam, it legitimises the terrorist in terms of that they’re actually carrying out a legitimate tenet of the Islamic faith and they’re not,” he told Newsnight.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Former CIA director John Brennan talks to Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark about Trump’s travel ban, the threat from North Korea, and the notion of a deep state.

Brennan was director of the CIA when it agreed with other intelligence agencies and the FBI at the end of last year that the Russian government had intervened in the 2016 elections to Trump’s benefit. He took part in a briefing on those conclusions presented separately to Barack Obama and Trump on 6 January. Asked about possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, he said: “It would be premature at this time to make any determination or rule anything out.”

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Brennan was also scathing about Trump’s denigration of the intelligence agencies, in the wake of their conclusions on the Russian role in the election and subsequent leaks about continuing investigations of Trump aides. Just over a week before taking office, the then president-elect compared the US intelligence community to Nazi Germany.

“Intelligence professionals take great pride in their work … But when there is baseless criticism and impugning the integrity and the mission of intelligence officers, yeah – they take umbrage at that and will continue to do so and I will certainly do,” Brennan said.



“If people feel as though the work of the agency is not being appreciated, is not being supported and is not of value to our country, why should they make those sacrifices?” he said. “If they feel as though that’s not being appreciated over time, yeah, I would think it would have a negative impact on morale with an agency, but [also] on recruitment.”