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Times 2: Analysis

Bush's CIA pick met with criticism

Democrats are skeptical, and some Republicans are, too, but confirmation appears likely so far.

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press
Published May 9, 2006

WASHINGTON - Once again, President Bush may have misjudged the extent of GOP resistance to one of his decisions. His nomination of a four-star general to serve as CIA director has drawn complaints from Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike.

The administration's shake-up, under way since late March, was expected to improve White House dealings with Congress. Yet Bush's selection of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden to lead the troubled spy agency - three days after he announced the resignation of Porter Goss - seems to have caught some top Republicans by surprise.

That includes Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who said Hayden "is the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Bush defended his choice, saying Hayden was "the right man to lead the CIA at this critical moment in our nation's history." And most top Republicans voiced support for the nomination.

But grumbling in some GOP quarters seemed likely to persist, fueled in part by Republican concern over Bush's declining approval ratings.

Those ratings - at 33 percent in a recent AP-Ipsos poll, the lowest of his presidency - have emboldened Republicans to speak out when they don't agree with the president.

The fact that Hayden oversaw the domestic surveillance program as director of the National Security Agency only keeps the controversy alive, with questions over it likely to figure prominently at his Senate confirmation hearings. He headed the NSA from 1999-2005.

"If he interprets the law as he appears to be interpreting it, I think it's bad for the country to have the chief of intelligence having telephones in the United States monitored without somebody else approving it," said retired Adm. Stansfield Turner, who was CIA chief during the Carter administration.

Otherwise, Turner characterized Hayden as "very qualified and very capable." Turner was an admiral when he led the CIA, a fact administration officials pointed to Monday in defense of Bush's choice.

The naming of an active four-star general raised concerns in Congress and with civil liberties groups.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, suggested Hayden consider resigning from the Air Force and "put to rest questions about whether an active duty military officer should lead the CIA at this time."

National intelligence director John Negroponte, who oversees the CIA and 15 other spy agencies, said Hayden had no such plans and called him "a very, very independent-minded" individual who wouldn't bow to any Pentagon pressure.

The criticism, at least initially, did not appear deep enough to jeopardize Hayden's confirmation chances. But it seemed certain to yield contentious confirmation hearings.

[Last modified May 9, 2006, 07:46:48]