Posted on 02/01/2005 9:29:25 PM PST by crushelits
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House is having trouble finding a new national intelligence 
director amid doubts about the job's practical authority over all U.S. espionage operations,
officials and intelligence experts said on Tuesday.
Six weeks after President Bush (news - web sites) signed the intelligence reform bill into law, a former CIA (news - web sites) director who served under the president's father said he had been offered the position but turned it down.
Robert Gates, currently president of Texas A&M University, announced his decision in a statement this week to quell media speculation about his candidacy.
"I was indeed asked to take the position, wrestled with perhaps the most difficult --- and close --- decision of my life, and last week declined the position," said Gates, who headed the CIA from 1991 to 1993.
His rejection was the latest sign that the White House faces a challenge finding a candidate capable of leading 15 U.S. intelligence agencies at a time when the administration is waging a global war on terrorism.
Congressional aides said lawmakers were waiting for a director to be nominated and confirmed by the Senate before implementing other sections of the intelligence reform bill.
"The number of candidates is fairly limited. I think the administration has been working hard at it for months," said Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the Sept. 11 commission.
The bipartisan panel that investigated the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington recommended a new national intelligence directorship be created to help address what 
it called deep structural flaws in the intelligence community.
"It is a position that will only succeed if it has the full backing of the president,"
said Hamilton, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana. He declined
to comment on speculation that he could be a candidate for intelligence director.
"The person taking the position is going to take on a lot of bureaucratic wars ... you need a person who has a lot of diplomatic skills, knowledge of the national security community and virtuoso managerial skills."
Congressional staff and other experts say the position, conceived to be the top intelligence advisor to the president, is ill-defined and could be marginalized by others including the CIA and Pentagon (news - web sites) chiefs.
"The bill does not create a very desirable job. You don't really run anything except your staff," said an aide with the Senate intelligence committee. "A president wants information. Information comes from collectors and analysts, not managers."
Added an intelligence source: "You're essentially a budget manager."
The White House is said to be proceeding with caution after its first choice for Homeland Security secretary, Bernard Kerik, withdrew abruptly over questions about the immigration status of a housekeeper.
Possible candidates include William Studeman, former deputy director of central intelligence and head of the National Security Agency, and Laurence Silberman, a federal judge who co-chairs a presidential commission examining intelligence capabilities on unconventional weapons.
Retired Gen. Tommy Franks, who led U.S. combat forces in Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites), has also been seen as a possibility, but congressional aides said they believe he is not interested.
Current CIA Director Porter Goss had initially been considered to be a favorite for the new intelligence director post, but is now believed likely to stay as head of the CIA.
Isn't Dan Rather looking for work?
White House Looking for Intelligent Chief Stalled
This appears to be a job no American is willing to do. Therefore, in the tradition of compassionate conservatism and family values that reach beyond the Rio Grande, we should attach a guest worker permit to the position and give it to Juan Valdez!
Insiders wanted it to be Goss so he would cease uprooting the elites in the CIA. Perhaps if Goss had been appointed four years ago I'd be in favor of him assuming this job. At the moment he's needed at the CIA more.
Jr should appoint his old man...
That's good. (A government job with intellegence in it?)
But could he be independent enough to get confirmed?
"Jr should appoint his old man."
If anyone knows the intelligence community it is the old man.
How about Ted Kennedy or Bill Clinton, Oh just heard is working for Kofi now
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