Israel war: GOP senator urges Biden to fire Jake Sullivan over intelligence failures

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) on Friday urged President Joe Biden to remove national security adviser Jake Sullivan from his post in the wake of last weekend’s unprecedented terrorist attack in Israel.

Blackburn called for Sullivan’s “immediate removal” in a letter to the president, arguing that the national security adviser “has routinely misled the entire government about the status of security threats around the world.” Sullivan has faced scrutiny since the attack over comments he made just a week prior, claiming that “the Middle East is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

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Sullivan said at the Atlantic Festival late last month that while “challenges remain,” citing hostilities between Palestinians and Israelis, “the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.”

“Yet, to date, over 1,200 Israelis have been killed, over 150 hostages have been taken from the safety of their homes, and at least 27 American lives have been lost, with at least 14 Americans still missing,” Blackburn wrote after referencing the national security adviser’s remarks. “This is Jake Sullivan’s perception of a quiet Middle East. This is unacceptable.”

Pointing to his support for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, easing sanctions on Tehran, and his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Blackburn argued that Sullivan “has been dead wrong on how to engage with Iran since his first day” on the job.

In a statement provided to the Washington Examiner on the letter, the Tennessee senator said, “America is better than a feckless foreign policy that emboldens terrorists and rogue regimes. We have been gravely misled by ‘experts’ who have been dead wrong, especially on Middle East policy. It’s time to clean shop — starting with Jake Sullivan.”

The White House did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on the letter.

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In addition to being the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, the attack also represented a mammoth failure for the intelligence community in both the United States and Israel. The Israeli intelligence apparatus has long been revered as possessing some of the best sources and overall cyber capabilities in the world. This wide-ranging assault has damaged that aura of invincibility.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that he “of course” plans to request a classified briefing on what intelligence failures may have occurred.