Negroponte Named Intelligence Chief

Bush Turns to Iraq Envoy, A Bureaucratic Operator, To Oversee the 15 Agencies

DAVID S. CLOUD and YOCHI J. DREAZEN / Wall Street Journal 18feb2005

President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to the newly created post of director of national intelligence, choosing a veteran bureaucrat rather than an intelligence professional for a job whose duties and powers remain largely undefined.

If confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Negroponte faces the task of setting up a bureaucracy to oversee the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies and the roughly $40 billion-a-year intelligence budget. Congress created the position last year after the 9/11 Commission called for giving a single official responsibility for intelligence-gathering, mainly to help prevent another major terrorist attack.

The Bush administration spent months trying to find someone to accept the job after a protracted congressional fight last year left the post's explicit powers significantly eroded. Some candidates feared the Pentagon, which controls more than 70% of the intelligence budget, would resist bringing communications eavesdropping, satellite and other Defense Department-run intelligence operations under the new director's control, according to congressional officials familiar with the search.

Mr. Bush indicated yesterday that he chose Mr. Negroponte in part because of his reputation as a canny bureaucratic operator willing to step into difficult jobs. "He's an experienced person. He understands the power centers in Washington. He's been a consumer of intelligence in the past. And so he's got a good feel for how to move this process forward in a way that addresses the different interests," Mr. Bush said.

Mr. Negroponte also will have an experienced deputy, Air Force Lt. Gen. Mike Hayden, who has directed the National Security Agency since March 1999.

As an intelligence consumer in recent years, Mr. Negroponte has gotten a firsthand look at notable U.S. failures. He was ambassador to the United Nations when administration officials used flawed intelligence, now seen as unsubstantiated, to make the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

During his seven-month tenure in Iraq, American intelligence services were unable to penetrate the top ranks of the insurgency committing daily violence against U.S. and Iraqi forces, or even to get an accurate sense of its size and organizational structures. U.S. intelligence also has been unable to locate terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or other key figures in Iraq's insurgency.

Both problems could give Mr. Negroponte a valuable sense of skepticism about the limitations of intelligence, as well as a ground's-eye perspective on where improvements are most needed.

Some experts said the director's ambiguous authority and Mr. Negroponte's lack of intelligence-agency experience will be tough hurdles. "There's no way he can fulfill the expectations for this job," said Richard Falkenrath, a Brookings Institution scholar who was a White House homeland-security adviser during Mr. Bush's first term. "To my knowledge, he has no experience with the inner workings of the intelligence process or the budget process, which is going to be a drawback for him, because it's very tough."

Mr. Negroponte said the new job would be "the most challenging assignment I have undertaken in more than 40 years of government service." Republican lawmakers said they would begin confirmation hearings in a few weeks and expected him to be approved quickly.

Still, Mr. Negroponte's close ties to the White House -- and his role in the Reagan administration covert war in Central America in the 1980s -- are likely to lead to sharp questioning from Senate Democrats.

Further, Mr. Negroponte's human-rights record will likely raise questions. Mr. Negroponte was the ambassador to Honduras when its military government ran a death squad financed and partially trained by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Critics have accused Mr. Negroponte of turning a blind eye to the death squad. Mr. Negroponte has consistently denied that the abuses were part of deliberate Honduran policy. His nomination to the U.N. post was delayed for six months because of the flap.

In Iraq, Mr. Negroponte backed interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's efforts to crack down on the insurgency by using harsh measures such as mass arrests and martial law, and restocking the country's security services with former Baathists. A recent Human Rights Watch report found "the abuse, torture and mistreatment of detainees by Iraqi security forces to be routine and commonplace."

If confirmed, Mr. Negroponte's main challenge will be taming the intelligence bureaucracy. The Pentagon intelligence agencies each have their own director who will report not only to Mr. Negroponte but also to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- a structure many experts consider fraught with potential problems. Mr. Negroponte may run into opposition from Defense Department officials worried that having a civilian in charge of intelligence will diminish spending on and availability of tactical intelligence for the battlefield.

Mr. Negroponte also will have to contend with grumbling at the CIA, which on paper at least is surrendering much of its role as coordinator of intelligence-gathering. Mr. Negroponte will become the president's main briefer on intelligence matters, replacing CIA Director Porter Goss.

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JOHN DIMITRI NEGROPONTE

Age/Birth Date: 65, born July 21, 1939, in London.

Experience: Ambassador to Iraq, 2004-present; ambassador to the U.N., 2001-2004; executive vice president, McGraw-Hill Cos., 1997-2001; ambassador to the Philippines, 1993-96; ambassador to Mexico, 1989-93; deputy national security adviser, 1987-89; assistant secretary of state, oceans, international environmental, scientific affairs, 1985-1987; ambassador to Honduras, 1981-85; deputy assistant secretary of state, East Asian and Pacific affairs, 1980-81; deputy assistant secretary of state, oceans and fisheries, 1977-79.

Education: Yale University, 1960.

Family: Wife, Diana; five children.

Source: Associated Press