Counterterrorism - Obama Presidency Oral History

Facing pushback in his efforts to close Guantanamo, Obama delivered a speech on May 21, 2009 at the National Archives that reiterated his intention to close the prison, and laid out his vision for a counterterrorism policy that aligned with core American values. Despite significant efforts to reduce the prison population through the eight years of his presidency, the Obama Administration was ultimately unable to close Guantanamo. The archive contains numerous accounts of people inside and outside the Administration reflecting on the reasons that the prison remains in use, and the significance of that fact given Obama’s emphasis on its closure.

The need to respond to the threat posed by international terrorism remained paramount to the White House, and was sharpened by a series of attacks and attempted attacks during the first years of Obama’s presidency. On December 25, 2009, a passenger tried but failed to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit, Michigan, and on May 1, 2010, Faisal Shahzad attempted to carry out a car bombing in Times Square. These attempted attacks and others pointed to the continuing threat posed by groups and individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda. Multiple narrators from the intelligence community, as well as the State Department, military, and the white House, discuss the Obama Administration’s efforts to confront increasingly diffuse networks of terrorist organizations.

The challenge of responding to the threat of terrorist attacks without inviting a climate of insecurity was highlighted by a bombing at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013, which killed three people and injured hundreds. In the midst of an intense manhunt for the two suspects, Obama delivered a speech at an interfaith service for the victims of the bombing at Boston’s Trinity Church. The speech, drafted by Massachusetts native Terry Szuplat, used the marathon as an image to reinforce the values of resiliency and resolve over fear in the fight against terrorism.

The Obama Administration expanded the use of targeted overseas military and intelligence operations to capture and kill members of terrorist groups fighting against the United States. The most striking example of the use of such capabilities was Operation Neptune Spear, in which Osama Bin Laden—the leader of Al Qaeda and architect of the September 11th attacks—was killed by U.S. special operations forces in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The archive contains multiple accounts of the operation, from individuals involved in months-long effort to gather intelligence and confirm Bin Laden’s identity, to the dramatic night of the Operation, and the aftermath. 

The emergence of a new global terrorist organization, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), forced the Administration to continue focusing on the threat of terrorism through its second term. Multiple narrators discuss the climate of fear created by ISIS’s 2013 dramatic offensive, which threatened to topple the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, the group’s use of social media to broadcast its brutal treatment of opponents and civilians, and the creation of ISIS franchise organizations across the globe. In 2014, ISIS massacres carried out against Yazidis—an ethnic minority in Iraq—forced members of the group to take refuge on Mount Sinjar. In the United States, Yazidi immigrants rallied to pressure the White House to intervene and halt a Yazidi genocide. The collection contains an interview with one of those Yazidis, Hadi Pir, an educator from Nebraska, as well as the reflections of Administration officials on the deliberations that led to Obama’s decision to authorize airstrikes against ISIS positions on August 7, 2014. 

ISIS or ISIS affiliates claimed responsibility for a number of high-profile terrorist attacks across the globe, most notably a series of mass shooting attacks in Paris on November 13, 2015, on the eve of the UN Paris Climate Conference. Weeks later, perpetrators inspired by ISIS carried out a mass shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernadino, CA. And on June 12, 2016, a shooter who pledged allegiance to ISIS opened fire in Pulse nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 and injuring 53, in what was at the time the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. While working to combat fears that ISIS was making inroads in the United States, the Obama Administration responded forcefully, launching airstrikes against the group and deploying combat troops to the Middle East as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, and creating and leading a Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. 

Of Obama’s own policies designed to combat global terrorist networks, few attracted as much public attention as the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to carry out remote attacks on terrorism suspects. The increased use of drones during the Obama Presidency attracted serious concern from some human rights organizations, who highlighted civilian casualties in the attacks and the lack of transparency surrounding the drone program. The archive includes several accounts of the administration’s internal deliberations and public efforts to address the use of drones, including from State Department Counselor Harold Hongjuh Koh and General Counsel of the Defense Department Jeh Johnson. The archive also contains accounts from human rights lawyers who discuss their efforts to promote greater transparency by publicly documenting the effects of drone strikes, and from a former analyst whose 2013 op ed in the Guardian aimed to raise awareness regarding the effects of UAV combat on servicemen and women in the drone program. Obama responded to the growing public debate over UAVs in a May 2013 speech at National Defense University which he set out clear guidelines for the authorized use of drones against terrorist targets. In July 2016, Obama signed an executive order requiring his administration to investigate and review information in which drone strikes were believed to have harmed civilians, and requiring the Director of National Intelligence to compile and release statistics on drone strikes.

Despite expectations that Obama would rein in the expansive apparatus designed by the Bush Administration’s Global War on Terror, by the end of Obama’s two terms it was clear that the threat of global terrorism would continue to demand attention and bureaucratic resources from the White House for years to come. The material on counterterrorism overlaps with several other topic essays, including Human Rights and Wartime Presidency.