Posted on 01/04/2007 5:17:45 AM PST by shrinkermd
Mr. Negroponte had been brought to the intelligence job to help restore credibility and effectiveness to agencies whose reputations were badly damaged by failures related to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and mistaken prewar assessments of Iraq’s illicit weapons. He has maintained a low public profile but provides Mr. Bush with a briefing most mornings.
President Bush has hailed the establishment of the intelligence post as an essential step in helping prevent another terrorist attack. On paper, the director of national intelligence outranks the deputy secretary of state, raising questions about why the White House would seek — and why Mr. Negroponte would agree to — the shift.
The move, expected to be announced this week, comes as the president prepares to announce a new strategy for Iraq as sectarian violence worsens there and approval ratings sag at home.
The administration has had great difficulty filling the State Department position. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked several people who have turned down the post, according to senior State Department officials.
But administration officials interviewed on Wednesday would not say whether Mr. Negroponte was moving because the White House saw him as uniquely qualified for the diplomatic post, or because President Bush was dissatisfied with his performance as intelligence chief, or whether it was a combination of the two.
Mr. Negroponte has served as ambassador to the United Nations and to Iraq, and administration officials say Ms. Rice was trying to recruit him to bring more Iraq expertise to her office.
Administration
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
So we have military men in both top intelligence jobs. Will the dhims protest? Perhaps they will again offer up Alcee Hastings.
I can only hope that it's so Negroponte can go clean house at State.
Negroponte, Negroponte. Where have I heard that name before? Oh, yeah, he's the guy that was ambassador to Iraq, or something?
Does anybody suppose he might be in line to be appointed to the UN slot? Since John Bolton was NOT confirmed, as you know.
It is my theory that our President intends to continue to prosecute the Iraqi War and its parallel reconstruction effort. To do this we are tasked with the neutralization of Muqtada Al Sad'r and his Al Mahdi Militia, which is now proven to be supplied by non-black market weapons and ordnance directly from Iran's national arsenals.
The Stupid Dems will cut funding for our military in Iraq, just like they did in similar situations during President Ford's administration ( Vietnam funding), and President Reagan's administration ( Contra funding), causing untold suffering in the nations of our allies.
It was Reagan who decided upon a plan "B" and continued his policy through what in hindsight might be called creative funding, with the assitance of Oly North and Casper Weinberger.
This will be President Bush's option as well. I see these administrative moves as preparation for plan"B", when the Democrats actually cut funding for our military in order to force a change in presidential policy. This borders on the unconstitutional, and with the help of a seditious press, leaves our nation 's executive arm no other choice except a plan "B".
Theories abound about plan "B'. The most likely candidates to fund a modified US military presence in Iraq , likely Special Ops forces with carrier and ground based TAC Air in support, as we had in the opening months of the war in Afghanistan, make the most sense. And the Saudis and their Sunni allies will fund the effort and the reconstruction of Iraq, rather than see its neigbor fall under the unfettered dominance of Iran's Shiite Sects.What will be the price? Perhaps the abandonment of our nation's public support of Israel, which would be a shame, and a curse. But we will have to see.
he already was UN ambassador around 2001-2004 if I am not mistaken
Pelosi, D-Calif., said the panel would "protect the American people with the best possible intelligence, recognizing the role that Congress plays in all of this."
It also would shake up long-standing power structures in Congress.
The Select Intelligence Oversight Panel would be part of the powerful Appropriations Committee and would draw its membership from that spending committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence.
Through a series of hearings, it would examine the president's intelligence budget, prepare the classified details to the annual defense spending bill and conduct oversight of the use of appropriated funds by intelligence agencies.
Pelosi's proposal does not follow the exact recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission. But it moves closer to the overhaul recommended two years ago when the commission found weaknesses in how Congress monitors the 16 intelligence agencies.
A Democratic member of the Sept. 11 commission — former Rep. Timothy Roemer of Indiana — said the change would achieve the commission's two major goals: forcing spy agencies to disclose more to Congress, which they often have ignored, and linking the expanded oversight to the power of the purse.
See post #7.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John NegroponteJohn Dimitri Negroponte (born July 21, 1939 in the United Kingdom) (IPA [ˌnɛgroʊˈp¨»nti]) is a career diplomat currently serving as the United States Director of National Intelligence. President Bush named Ambassador Negroponte as the first Director of National Intelligence in 2005. Prior to this appointment, Negroponte served as the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. He also served in the United States Foreign Service, from 1960 to 1997. He has various tours of duty as a United States ambassador, including a three-year ambassadorship to the Philippines, from 1993 to 1996. He subsequently served as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations from 2001 to 2004, and was ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005.
Negroponte is no second fiddle. This is intentional.
What's the likelihood that Condi Rice will leave State for some reason: (1) to preserve her reputation since State is in a shambles, (2) to take a job she's always wanted more, (3) to enter the presidential "officially not running but draftable" sweepstakes?
Wasn't this Karen Hughes' position?
He was already there...
Karen Hughes is UnderSecretary for Public Deplomacy (R). In the State Department, there are undersecretaries for several things and they each have their own letter. Politics is P, Economics is E, Arms Control is T, Management is M, and so on. D is the number two person, just under S.
cheers,
I suspect that Rice actually held Zoellick's job for Negroponte, knowing that he was coming back to State. He's an operator, going back to the Contra War in the 1980's, and he'll run the Department quite well. Expect Karen Hughes to be sent back down to Texas or to the RNC. That simply hasn't worked out: she has been clumsy and oafish in her job, but since she's tight with the President from the Old Days, Condi can't just demote her.
Negroponte understands the relationship between Iraq, Syria, and Iranian strategic ambitions. As does Rice, btw. You don't see Americans trying to push some silly EU-3 Plan for Iranian nuclear disarmament. That's because Rice understood, as did Negroponte, Rumsfeld, and Cheney, that the Persians intended to lie their way to the atomic bomb and regional dominance.
Brent Scowcroft's article in the NYT today is a belated acknowledgement on the part of the "realist school" that they overreached and placed too many hopes in the ISG's (that is, Jim Baker's) recommendation that one could talk with the Mullah's regime. The torrent of intelligence leaks from the Pentagon that indicate Iranian involvement on the ground in Iraq merely put the lance into the quivering carcass of the ISG's bid for dominance of Iraq policy.
Any "Plan B" that skirted legal requirements would be siezed upon by the Dems to try to destroy the President and his 2008 successor. That simply won't happen in the partisan atmosphere of Washington. Bush needs to avoid "racket hearings" over the next two years, although the Dems will do everything they can to destroy him.
Finally, the Moqtada will not be assassinated, imho, but neutralized. You neuter the Moqtada by going medieval on his boyos. Which we can do. If you actually assassinate the Beard, you risk doing the Diem/Madame Nhu thing. We can't be about the business of assassinating Iraqi pols that we don't like. We can kill their Iranian advisors, however, and vaporizing thier thugs.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
The ISG said other government agencie needed to get involved in Iraq, not just the military. The most interesting suggestion was to use the FBI and retired law enforcement people to train the Iraqi police. They also criticized the intel and state dept. Some military say the same when they say that they have already accomplished what a miitary can do.
Khalizad may get the UN job, but I'd rather see him back at DC too. He's done a super job in Baghdad.
All of this, all of this, is about two things: stamping down on the insurgents in Iraq and, of even greater importance, determining whether or not the Iranians are on the verge of weaponizing fisson-grade atomics that can be mounted on IRBM's. The second is of great importance because the Iranians intend to target European Cities in addition to Israel.
The greatest problem is the apparent incompetence of the CIA. We got our network rolled up by the Revolutionary Guards back in the Clinton era. Now the only people who have any info that we trust, afaik, are the Izzies, and I don't know how far Bush actually trusts them. Hopefully, I'm wrong and we have better information, but the history of American intellence achievements since the Bay of Pigs doesn't give me much hope.
A final note: MI-6 may have assets in Iran. That's the only other outfit I would trust. I think we're blind, except for the satellites, the SIGINT, and what our SF people who go in-country find now and again.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Thanks!
I knew she was in charge of carrying the Secretary's brief case and hand bag, but I wasn't sure of her official position.
Mossad?
I'm asking myself why someone would want to be 2nd fiddle. This is not even a lateral move for Negroponte.
Isn't the new czar of all intel a cabinet level job?
DepSecState actually runs the Department and has vast patronage power. DNI, remember, was not something Negroponte was terribly happy at doing. There could be other things going on, as well within the WH that we aren't privy to, but expect Condi to stay.
The India treaty was a huge achievement for her, and the dividends from the Japanese Naval Treaty of 2005 are now coming due. Slowly, glacially, Rice is reorienting American diplomacy towards Asia and away from Atlanticism. People don't see this because of Iraq and Persia's bid for regional hegemony, but in the long run, Condi is concentrating our attentions on the part of the world that matters, Asia, and away from those that don't, Europe and the Middle East.
It's a little hard to conceive of this, but were it not for the petroleum, the Middle East would be a strategic backwater like it was during the thirties and forties.
Add to this fact that she spends a lot of downtime at Camp David and Crawford. She ain't going anywhere unless, say, H. Wayne Huizenga, in a desperate bid to recover from Alabama's poaching, offers her the Dolphins' Head Coaching Job.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
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