Critics attack new spy tsar for blind eye

A Call To Action

By Douglas Jehl and Elisabeth Bumiller in Washington
February 19, 2005

The US President, George Bush, has named John Negroponte as the first director of national intelligence, to take charge of US intelligence agencies as they try to recover from missteps on Iraq and the September 11 terrorist attacks.

After a long search Mr Bush turned to Mr Negroponte, a career diplomat who has been ambassador to the United Nations and Iraq, and whose decades of diplomatic experience mean he is familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of US intelligence agencies.

The Senate confirmed him for the earlier jobs in 2001 and last year by large margins, despite questions about his performance in the early 1980s as ambassador to Honduras. Critics said he had turned a blind eye to human rights abuses.

Mr Bush chose Lieutenant-General Michael Hayden of the Air Force as Mr Negroponte's top deputy. He is a career military intelligence officer who as director of the National Security Agency has spent the past five years as overseer of the country's electronic eavesdropping operations.
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Mr Bush said the posts would help ensure US intelligence agencies operated as "a single unified enterprise", the goal embraced by Congress and the White House after missteps on Iraq and terrorism suggested systemic intelligence flaws.

At 65, Negroponte, who worked in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, has spent 41 of the past 45 years in government service, serving in senior posts at both the State Department, as ambassador to the United Nations, Mexico, the Philippines and Honduras, and at the White House, where he was deputy national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan.

"I trust his judgement and I look forward to working with him," Mr Bush said, adding that Mr Negroponte's service as ambassador to Iraq since last June had provided him with "an incalculable advantage for an intelligence chief: an unvarnished and up-close look at a deadly enemy".

Mr Bush said Mr Negroponte would be his principal intelligence adviser, with daily access as principal briefer at morning meetings in the Oval Office.

If the Senate confirms Mr Negroponte he will oversee the country's 15 intelligence agencies and exercise broad control over an intelligence budget estimated to be $US40 billion ($50 billion) a year.

Critics said Mr Negroponte had a record of political loyalty overwhelming accurate reporting. His promotion would further politicise intelligence, they said. Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official, pointed to his Honduras ambassadorship.

"I think of the Negroponte of the 1980s covering up humans rights abuses, and then I think of the role of intelligence in telling truth to power, and it doesn't fit," Mr Goodman said.

In Baghdad, Mr Negroponte is also reported to have disagreed with CIA reports on the strength of the insurgency, and sent more optimistic views back to Washington.

"Negroponte is tough enough," Mr Goodman said. "The question is, is he independent enough?"

The New York Times, Reuters,The Guardian