• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Hayden says CIA needs to restore public trust

Posted on: Thursday, 18 May 2006, 09:48 CDT

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Gen. Michael Hayden, U.S. President George W. Bush's nominee for CIA director, said on Thursday the spy agency needed to restore public trust but should also be less of a political football to do its job effectively.

Hayden had been expected to face questions at a Senate Intelligence Committee confirmation hearing about his role as architect of Bush's domestic spying program, which the administration has defended as legal and necessary to protect citizens after the September 11 attacks.

But in an opening statement to the committee, Hayden did not mention the issue and focused solely on his vision for the future of the CIA.

"We will dedicate ourselves to strengthening the American public's confidence and trust in the CIA and reestablishing the agency's 'social contract' with the American people," he said.

"Respectfully, senators, I believe that the American intelligence business has too much become the football in American political discourse."

Bush nominated Hayden, a four-star Air Force general, to replace Porter Goss, who was forced to resign as CIA director this month after clashing with U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte over the U.S. spy agency's future.

Michigan Democratic Sen. Carl Levin, in his opening statement, said the two most recent CIA directors, Goss and George Tenet, had left the agency in disarray and presided over crucial intelligence failures, especially in advance of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

"One major question for me is whether General Hayden will restore analytical independence and objectivity at the CIA and speak truth to power or whether he will shape intelligence to support administration policy and mislead Congress and the American people as Director Tenet did," Levin said.

Hayden addressed that in his statement. "When it comes to that phrase we become familiar with, 'Speaking truth to power,' I will indeed lead CIA analysts by example. I will, as I expect every analyst will, always give our nation's leaders our best analytic judgment," he said.

STRONG DEFENSE

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, gave a strong defense of the administration's program to eavesdrop on international telephone calls of suspected terrorists without court approval. He said this and other programs needed to remain secret to be effective.

"I am a strong supporter of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment and civil liberties. But you have no civil liberties if you are dead," Roberts said.

"I believe that the NSA terrorist surveillance program is legal, it is necessary, and without it the American people would be less safe. Of this I have no doubt," Roberts said.

As head of the National Security Agency, Hayden crafted and implemented the warrantless eavesdropping program that remained secret until it was leaked to the media late last year.

Critics have questioned the program's legality and said Bush may have overstepped his constitutional powers in authorizing it.

Another report in USA Today last week, neither confirmed nor denied by the administration, revealed the NSA had amassed a giant database on the telephone calling patterns of millions of Americans.

The Bush administration provided new details about the NSA surveillance effort in closed-door briefings for all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the eve of Hayden's confirmation hearing. Previously, it had only briefed the chairman and senior Democrat.

The full Senate must vote to confirm Hayden as CIA director. Most independent experts expected Hayden to be confirmed. Senators were limited in what they could ask him in open session. The committee planned to hold a closed session later on Thursday, where the questions might be more pointed but would remain secret.

In addition to constitutional concerns, critics of the warrantless eavesdropping program say it violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, a 1978 law requiring court warrants for all intelligence-related eavesdropping inside the United States.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category