Bush to name Hayden CIA head, faces fight

By Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Bush will name deputy
national intelligence director Gen. Michael Hayden as the new
CIA chief on Monday, setting up a battle with Congress over his
credentials to lead the spy agency.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley, appearing on
morning talk shows, confirmed what had become the worst kept
secret in Washington after CIA chief Porter Goss was eased out
of his job on Friday after less than two years.

A number of lawmakers, including some from Bush’s
Republican party, have voiced concern about Hayden being a
general with close ties to the military and his role in an
eavesdropping program assailed by critics as a violation of
civil rights.

“It sends the wrong signal,” Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a
Michigan Republican who heads the House of Representatives
Intelligence Committee, told CNN. “I’m not sure he can adapt.”

The White House said the nominee would be announced
officially at 9:30 a.m. EDT (1330 GMT). Bush is pursuing a
shake-up of his staff in an attempt to present a new face for
his team and rebound from sagging poll numbers.

The CIA lost clout when it fell under a newly created
director of national intelligence as part of reforms in
response to intelligence failures over the September 11
attacks.

Tensions between national intelligence director John
Negroponte and Goss grew as the new intelligence arm sought to
assert itself over the CIA and met opposition from the spy
agency, administration officials have said.

Hayden, an Air Force general, must be approved by the
Senate so Hoekstra will have no say in the final vote. But as
intelligence chairman his opinion has impact and several
senators on Sunday expressed similar doubts about Hayden’s
background.

“THE RIGHT MAN”

Hadley said there was no reason for Hayden to resign his
military commission, pointing out that several military men had
led the CIA in the past.

“General Hayden is the president’s nominee to be the
director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the president
strongly believes he’s the best man for the job,” Hadley told

CNN.

Countering Hoekstra’s complaint that Hayden was the wrong
man in the wrong place at the wrong time, Hadley said on NBC’s
“Today” show, “He is the right man for the CIA at this time.”

But Rick Russell, a former CIA analyst who teaches
strategic studies at National Defense University, said a
military man in the top CIA job sends the wrong message.

“One of the big reasons for the creation of a director of
national intelligence has been to exert more civilian
leadership over the intelligence community,” he said. “And yet
you put an active duty officer in charge of the gem of civilian
intelligence. That cuts at cross-purposes, frankly.”

Senators have said they would use Hayden’s Senate
confirmation hearings to learn more about the program of
warrantless eavesdropping on Americans’ international phone
calls and e-mail in pursuit of terrorism suspects.

Bush defends it as essential to fighting terrorism.

Some Congress members have said a general heading the CIA
could give the Pentagon too much sway over U.S. intelligence
gathering. Others have said he is too close to the White House
and lacks experience building a clandestine service.

The CIA is in charge of gathering human intelligence and
Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, has
most of his background in technological intelligence gathering.

As head of the NSA, he was in charge of eavesdropping
operations. Bush has said Hayden was the one who proposed the
domestic eavesdropping program after the September 11 attacks.

(With reporting by David Wiessler and David Morgan)