Hayden intelligence role hailed

• Article
• Comments ()
• Click-2-Listen
• Videos

By

The chairman and vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence yesterday welcomed the nomination of John D. Negroponte as the nation's intelligence chief and highlighted the critical role that his deputy is expected to play.

"Both Jay and I think that the appointment of Ambassador John Negroponte and, more especially, the appointment of his deputy, Lieutenant General Michael Hayden ... represent an excellent team," said Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican and committee chairman, who appeared on "Fox News Sunday" with Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, West Virginia Democrat.

Mr. Roberts went on to call Gen. Hayden "one of the most respected people in the intelligence community."

Gen. Hayden, head of the National Security Agency, will become second in command of the nation's spy agencies under Mr. Negroponte, if he is confirmed by the Senate.

The announcement of Gen. Hayden was universally welcomed by serving and former intelligence officials, who described him as a technocrat who knows the nation's intelligence agencies "forwards and backwards," in the words of Mr. Roberts.

The architects of last year's intelligence reform law were almost unanimous last week in welcoming Gen. Hayden's nomination.

"He has a real willingness to speak his mind," said Rep. Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "He's not a Pentagon yes man."

Mr. Hoekstra pointed out that Gen. Hayden had bucked the general consensus at the Pentagon by coming out in favor of an intelligence director with sweeping authorities over budget and personnel matters.

In testimony -- later made public -- before a closed hearing of Mr. Hoekstra's committee in August, Gen. Hayden issued a call to "radically change [the] equilibrium" of "powers, authorities, needs, equities and requirements" among the various U.S. intelligence agencies by creating an intelligence chief "with all the powers he needs."

"There are a variety of possible formulae" for ascertaining what authorities the new post might need, Gen. Hayden testified. "But the calculus here is simple: More is better than less; total is better than part."

At the same hearing, Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, suggested that the powers of the new intelligence chief be curtailed carefully and cautioned against radical change, saying: "To those who would tear down what is, falls the responsibility of putting in place something better."

The only notes of caution were struck by those who worried that the office Gen. Hayden and his boss will occupy has been created with insufficient powers.

"What's going to be important is that when he comes to his first few tests with Rumsfeld over a decision, that the president back up Negroponte," Mr. Rockefeller told "Fox News Sunday." "That's going to be the real key -- will the president not just announce and praise him and say that he has the authority to determine budgets and all the authority he needs, but will he back him up when he's challenged?"