Nominee Says He Will Steer Spy Overhaul

By Greg Miller

April 13, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — John D. Negroponte, President Bush’s choice to become the nation’s first intelligence director, pledged Tuesday to spearhead sweeping reform of the U.S. spy community and to ensure that U.S. agents abided by “all applicable laws” in their pursuit of terrorist networks and other targets.

But Negroponte offered few specifics during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and resisted some lawmakers’ calls for a review of the CIA’s policies in handling detainees and the controversial U.S. practice of turning terrorist suspects over to countries known to engage in torture.

Negroponte, who most recently served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, described his new mission in stark terms, saying that the U.S. faced a lengthy conflict with terrorist groups and other adversaries, and could not win unless the nation’s spy agencies rebounded from massive failures leading up to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Iraq.

“In the past four years, our homeland has been attacked, and we have miscalculated the arsenal, if not the intent, of a dangerous adversary,” Negroponte said. “Our intelligence effort has to generate better results -- that’s my mandate, plain and simple.”

Tuesday’s hearing was marked by several pointed exchanges. In particular, Negroponte faced new pressure to defend his record against charges that he ignored human rights abuses while serving as a senior diplomat in Central America in the 1980s. In other moments, Negroponte seemed somewhat unprepared for seemingly basic questions about his proposed new job.

But in a display of his diplomatic skills, Negroponte emerged from the hearing with commitments of support from lawmakers in both parties, and appeared poised for Senate confirmation.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, described Negroponte as an “excellent choice” for what many believe will be one of the most challenging jobs in government. Roberts said a committee vote could come this week.

As director of national intelligence, Negroponte would be charged with leading a confederation of 15 intelligence agencies through the most significant overhaul in 50 years -- at a time when U.S. adversaries are proving increasingly adept at eluding traditional spying methods.

“Just by showing up for your first day of work you will step on quite a few toes,” Roberts said. “The process of change begins with you.”

The position of director of national intelligence was mandated in legislation approved by Congress last year at the urging of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks. The post outranks the CIA director and supplants many of that position’s traditional duties. The director of national intelligence, or DNI, as the post is being called, will serve as the principal intelligence advisor to the president, and will coordinate the activities of the nation’s spy agencies.

The director will have the authority under the law to “determine” intelligence budgets and to move personnel from one agency to another. But several lawmakers reiterated concerns Tuesday that the position might not be endowed with enough power to exercise real control.

Skeptics point in particular to the Pentagon, which is expanding its involvement in intelligence operations and has opposed proposals to strip some of the nation’s largest spy agencies -- including the National Security Agency, which conducts electronic eavesdropping operations -- from the Defense Department budget.

Despite some curbs on its power, the Pentagon controls about 80% of the country’s $40-billion annual spending on intelligence.

Negroponte said he would seek to “push the envelope” of the powers carved out for the intelligence director, but acknowledged that he would be relying in part on the backing of the president to settle bureaucratic disputes.

He also said that recent moves by the Pentagon to consolidate its authority over certain intelligence operations would “in no way preclude my ability to deal directly” with agencies housed in the Defense Department.

After the hearing, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), the ranking Democrat on the intelligence panel, said one of the reasons he supported Negroponte’s nomination was that he thought the former ambassador had the stature to challenge Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld in competition for resources.

“This guy’s good,” Rockefeller said. “He has tremendous self-confidence.”

Negroponte, 65, has never held a job in any of the agencies he could lead. But he has had close ties to the intelligence community throughout his career in the State Department, including stints as ambassador to Mexico in the early 1990s, and as ambassador to the United Nations when the U.S. was urging other countries to support the war in Iraq.

The source of the greatest controversy is his tenure as U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985, when the country served as a staging ground for a covert CIA campaign against the Marxist government in neighboring Nicaragua. Critics contend that Negroponte overlooked human rights abuses by the Honduran government.

Documents that surfaced this week added to that criticism. Records obtained from the State Department by the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act showed that Negroponte played down concerns that Honduran strongman Gen. Gustavo Alvarez was linked to death squads, and instead emphasized Alvarez’s “dedication to democracy.”

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) criticized Negroponte on Tuesday over his record in Honduras, saying that his descriptions of events were so out of sync with the violent reality that “it is almost as if you were an ambassador to a different country.”

Negroponte defended his record, saying he “called to Washington’s attention what was going on in Honduras,” and dismissed the renewed criticism as carping over history.

The human rights issue has resurfaced in part because Negroponte, if confirmed, would be leading U.S. spy agencies when they are facing criticism for their handling of detainees. Several detainees have died in CIA custody. The agency has also carried out so-called renditions, in which terrorism suspects are transferred to the custody of countries known to engage in torture or abuse.

Negroponte promised to ensure that U.S. intelligence operatives obeyed the law, and criticized documented abuses.

“Not only is torture illegal and reprehensible,” he said, “I don’t think it’s an effective way of producing useful information.”

But Negroponte avoided the question when asked by Wyden whether he would be willing to take a fresh look at U.S. interrogation and detention practices.

After the morning hearing, Negroponte met with senators in a closed session.

Negroponte acknowledged that he had had limited time to prepare for his potential new job, and he struggled to answer some questions. He told senators that he could not offer informed views on interrogation techniques or whether U.S. intelligence collection had improved in recent years.

After stumbling over one of many acronyms for various spy agencies, Negroponte quipped: “I’ve got to learn a whole new alphabet soup here.”