Obama’s Nobel might help U.S., journalist tells audience at Virginia Intermont

BRISTOL, Va. – While it is surprising that President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize just nine months into his presidency, the honor might help America’s efforts to end conflicts and win support around the world, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist said Saturday while visiting Bristol.
“It’s a little surprising he got this already, because he has hasn’t ended any conflicts,” said author and Washington Post reporter Dana Priest, who specializes in military and national-security affairs. “But I think it represents [a belief] on the part of the Nobel committee that he is giving people hope that he will.”
Priest’s visit was part of the Bristol Public Library Discovery Series and the Virginia Intermont College Arts and Attitudes convocation series. She met with media at the Bristol library, delivered her speech in VI’s Kegley Auditorium, and ate lunch with students in the college dining hall.
Priest said Obama’s early efforts to reach out to Muslims and European countries also likely helped him win the Nobel Prize.
“He must be a real problem for al-Qaeda,” Priest said, referring to the international terrorist group responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.
“He speaks to Muslims, he tries to embrace an international approach and he’s so attractive because of his personal story,” Priest said. “So I would imagine from the outside [world], it’s a little harder to hate him.”
A longtime journalist, Priest won a Pulitzer in 2006 for her exposé of the Central Intelligence Agency’s secret overseas prisons. She won another Pulitzer in 2008 for her investigation into poor conditions suffered by wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
In comments during her news conference at the library, Priest:
n Predicted that Obama will send more troops to Afghanistan, but not as many as U.S. military leaders have suggested. “I think he’ll find some sort of middle ground,” she said.
n Declared that the CIA “is definitely going through a rough moment” because of intense scrutiny over how it interrogated and treated detainees in recent years, but that the agency is taking too much blame in the scandal. “The CIA was not doing a rogue operation,” Priest said. “They were doing what they believed they had the authority to do and the responsibility to do. And I think that’s getting a little lost in all this.”
n Said the United States is likely safer from internal threats than before 9/11, but probably more vulnerable outside its borders because it invaded Iraq in 2003. “We’ve plugged so many of the holes that existed to allow people with bad intentions to come in ... and to do harm,” Priest said.
“On the outside, though, the Iraq War just created such an animosity toward the United States, and really fueled the recruitment of new al-Qaeda terrorists,” she said. “So I don’t think that, outside the United States, the situation is a lot better.”
n Suggested that U.S. authorities largely know Osama bin Laden is hiding somewhere inside Pakistan, but have been frustrated in finding him “by an amazing ring of security that just cannot be followed.”
n Noted that her prize-winning investigation of Walter Reed has produced a mixed result as far as improving conditions at the military medical center. “There’s been a lot of initiatives and a lot more money devoted to cleaning up Walter Reed physically, and creating an atmosphere where soldiers who are recuperating don’t stay in their room for 20 days without anyone knowing,” Priest said. “On the other hand, unfortunately, it’s a huge bureaucracy. And there still are lots of [veterans] who do have problems with it. There are still a lot of issues.”