 His responsibilities included overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters, and he met with the president daily.In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, saying that waterboarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists and decreasing the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the U.S.He also described the Obama administration's focus as being on "extremists" and not "jihadists".