Posted on 06/10/2005 7:31:39 AM PDT by anniegetyourgun
President Bush on Friday selected a retired vice admiral of the Navy, who recently held an operations post in Iraq, to direct the nation's new counterterrorism center charged with pooling and analyzing information about terrorist threats.
Retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd is Bush's choice to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, White House spokesman Scott McClellan announced.
Redd formerly was executive director of the Silberman-Robb presidential commission on intelligence. If confirmed by the Senate, Redd, 60, would replace John O. Brennan, the center's interim chief, who said last month that he would step down after a replacement was announced.
"He is someone who understands the nature of the enemy that we face in the war on terrorism," McClellan said.
The center, which Bush was visiting Friday morning, was created as part of the wide-ranging overhaul of the nation's spy community, spurred by what critics called the government's failure to collect, understand and share critical information before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Redd served 36 years in the U.S. Navy, commanding eight organizations at sea from a destroyer to a fleet. He founded and commanded the Navy's Fifth Fleet in the Middle East in 1995 and has held top policy posts at the Pentagon. Since retiring in 1998, he has served as chief executive officer of a high-tech education company and deputy administrator and chief operating officer of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.
Besides naming a new director for the center, Bush was being asked to clear up a possible kink in the chain of command. The director of the center reports to the president on non-intelligence joint counterterrorism operations. But the center director is under National Intelligence Director John Negroponte on the spy community flow chart.
The president also named members of an oversight board being created to make sure the government's counterterror investigations and arrests do not trample privacy rights and civil liberties.
Bush picked Texas lawyer Carol Dinkins, who was deputy attorney general under former President Reagan, to chair the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, and Alan Charles Raul, an administration official in the former Bush and Clinton administrations, to be vice chairman.
The other members chosen by Bush are: Lanny Davis, once a crisis manager in the Clinton White House; former Solicitor General Ted Olson; and General Electric Co. executive Francis X. Taylor, a former head of diplomatic security and counterterrorism coordinator at the State Department.
Lanny Davis? I puke!
Interesting appointment (see last paragraph). Lannie is outnumbered and outclassed by the more intelligent folks on this particular board. I suspect he is there in order to be shown how much more seriously this administration is taking BOTH terrorism AND civil liberties than did the last administration.
Klintoon buttboy!!
Lanny hasn't been on the talk shows ranting for quite some time. I believe Mr. Davis has chosen wisely.
Aww....poor nascar grandma....got bounced. Oh well, it's clear that if you keep repeating your nonsense, a handful might buy it. But bottom line? Bush isn't running in '08....whatever will you do with all that hatred you have in you!?? You people are just so ugly.....and stupid.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.