Fmr. NSA Chief General Michael Hayden Nominated to Replace Outgoing CIA Director Goss

The resignation of CIA Director Porter Goss, announced abruptly by the White House on Friday, is another demonstration of the instability and vicious infighting within the Bush administration. Goss ends a relatively brief 18-month tenure at the agency, a period during which he conducted a political purge in which at least a dozen top CIA officials were driven out.

The Goss resignation is the outcome of a protracted and murky conflict within the military-intelligence apparatus, involving John Negroponte, Bush’s choice as the first Director of National Intelligence, the military intelligence apparatus—headed by Stephen Cambone, the most trusted deputy of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—and multiple factions within the CIA itself.

Negroponte apparently has emerged as the victor in this infighting, with his deputy, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, former head of the National Security Agency, named by White House officials as the likely choice to succeed Goss at CIA. In an indication that the conflict is continuing, however, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” to oppose the as-yet-unannounced selection of Hayden, saying that the career military intelligence official has experience only in electronic information-gathering, not in covert operations.

There are no clear policy differences among Negroponte, Rumsfeld, Cambone and Goss. They all share responsibility for the Bush administration’s criminal war of aggression in Iraq, and for the debacle that the US occupation of the oil-rich country has become. To some extent, there is an institutional conflict between the Pentagon, which controls 85 percent of the vast intelligence budget, and Negroponte’s new agency, established in 2005 to centralize control over all 16 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA.

The immediate impulse for Goss’s ouster, however, is his apparent link to the sex and bribery scandal involving former Republican Congressman Randy Cunningham, who resigned from Congress last fall and has been sentenced to prison for steering military contracts to several favored companies in return for cash and other payoffs.

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WASHINGTON, May8 , 2006 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Despite serious concerns by top lawmakers, US President George Bush nominated on Monday, May8 , General Michael Hayden, who supervised the controversial domestic spying program, to be the new CIA director.

"Mike knows our intelligence community from the ground up. He has been both a provider and a consumer of intelligence," Bush said at the White House, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

"He has demonstrated an ability to adapt our intelligence services to the new challenges of the war on terror," he added, flanked by Hayden on one side and director of national intelligence John Negroponte on the other.

"He's the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our nation's history."

Bald, round-faced Air Force general Hayden, who wears glasses and a chestful of medals, is currently Negroponte's right-hand man.

CIA Director Porter Goss submitted his resignation on Friday.

Rumors have it that Goss was forced to resign as a result of a rift with the president and Negroponte over policy and continued internal turmoil at the CIA.

Goss had relinquished his powerful perch as chairman of the House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee to take over the top CIA job less than two years ago.

Controversial

The nomination already has proved controversial, with many expressing serious doubts about Hayden's independence from the White House and whether the career military man can stand up to the increasingly powerful Pentagon.

"Bottom line, I do believe he's the wrong person, the wrong place, at the wrong time," Republican Representative Pete Hoekstra, who heads the House intelligence committee, said Sunday, May7 .

"We should not have a military person leading a civilian agency at this time," he said.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein expressed concern about military control of most intelligence matters.

"You can't have the military, I think, control most of the major aspects of intelligence," she told ABC television.

The New York Times noted this past weekend that "even though General Hayden has not been closely associated with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his pedigree as a military officer could reinforce concerns at the spy agency that the Pentagon is intruding into its traditional bailiwick."

Lawmakers expect to grill Hayden over the domestic eavesdropping program, which he oversaw during his time as director of the National Security Agency.

"I have some very pointed questions," Republican Senator Arlen Specter, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News.

"I want to know what the program is. We cannot judge its constitutionality without knowing what the program is."

Bush has defended an executive order he signed in 2002 allowing eavesdropping without warrants, saying it was limited only to monitoring international phone and e-mail communications linked to people with connections to Al-Qaeda.

But The New York Times revealed in December that the NSA has "directly" tapped the country’s main communications systems without court-approved warrants.

The domestic spying drew scathing criticism from a host of US figures, most notably former president Jimmy Carter as well as senior Congressmen, who blasted Bush's warrantless spying program as illegal.

Cold Warrior

Hayden started in the spy business at the height of the Cold War and then made the leap into the post-September 11 world as the US launched its so-called war on terror.

From 1999 to2005 , he headed the ultra-secret NSA, which employs21 ,000 agents dedicated to electronic espionage: deciphering electronic messages, eavesdropping on telephone communications and intercepting e-mail traffic.

Considered the nerve center of US espionage, the NSA, with its estimated3 .6 billion dollar budget, is so secretive its abbreviated name is often jokingly spelled out as "No Such Agency."

Its activities are supported by a fleet of spy satellites capable of reading car license plates from outer space.

But despite spending six years as NSA head and then working as Negroponte's deputy, Hayden is first and foremost a career air force officer and an expert in military intelligence matters.

He cut his teeth in espionage in the early1980 s in Bulgaria, where he worked as an attache at the US embassy in Sofia.

The task before Hayden if confirmed as CIA director is difficult, because its image and internal operations have suffered in the wake of the 9 / 11attacks.

The agency has been assailed for not detecting the plot before the attacks, as well as for its controversial role before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when it claimed Baghdad had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, which have never been found.

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