Negroponte to be Intelligence Chief

[jatx]

February 17, 2005
Bush Names Iraq Envoy as Nation's 1st Intelligence Chief
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Thursday named John Negroponte, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and currently the administration's top representative in Iraq, to be America's first national intelligence director.

It's a sudden job change for Negroponte, a career diplomat. The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has been serving as U.S. ambassador in Baghdad since June.

Negroponte, 65, was at the United Nations when he was tapped to take on the delicate job of transforming the U.S. presence in Iraq from that of an occupier to that of an adviser. Bush chose him for the job last April and he went to Baghdad hours after the handover of sovereignty to Iraq's interim government.

Negroponte has also been ambassador to the Philippines, Mexico and Honduras.

As ambassador to the United Nations, Negroponte helped win unanimous approval of a Security Council resolution that demanded Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein comply with U.N. mandates to disarm. Negroponte worked to expand the role for international security forces in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taliban government.

Negroponte's confirmation to the United Nations post was delayed a half-year mostly because of criticism of his record as the U.S. ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985. In Honduras, he played a prominent role in assisting the Contras in Nicaragua in their war with the left-wing Sandinista government.

Human rights groups alleged that Negroponte acquiesced in human rights abuses by Honduran death squads funded and partly trained by the CIA. Negroponte testified during the hearings for the U.N. post that he did not believe death squads were operating in Honduras.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., reacting to the news, said, "The number one problem that has plagued our domestic war on terror is that the individual agencies responsible for intelligence gathering still don't share. It is my hope that the president will give the resources and authority to Ambassador Negroponte to turn things around in our disconnected intelligence community."

[Roguish Lawyer]

So is this a good choice or not?

[jatx]

Well, I'm not particularly supportive of this new post to begin with, but he seems like a fine choice to me. His time at State should have prepared him well for the kind of bureaucratic infighting and turf wars he's likely to encounter as he brings so many disparate groups under one umbrella. I also like that he has been on the ground in Iraq for some time, and that he had some experience with UW in Honduras. Perhaps that will lessen the likelihood of him taking an Ivory Tower approach to GWOT.

Others here are likely to have a much richer view of this, though... ;)

[NousDefionsDoc]

Holy Mary Mother of God! What, does Negroponte have pics of POTUS or something? COME ON!!!!

[jatx]

Holy Mary Mother of God! What, does Negroponte have pics of POTUS or something? COME ON!!!!

Care to elaborate on that? Whom would you have chosen? :munchin

[rubberneck]

Holy Mary Mother of God! What, does Negroponte have pics of POTUS or something? COME ON!!!!


My very first thought was that Negroponte was chosen simply because he is politically reliable and part of the Bush inter-circle. While I don't think the pick was an inspired one there are several things in its favor.

The first is Negroponte has never worked for one of the agencies he now controls and might be able to stay above the interagency in fighting without being accused of favoring one over the other. He doesn't have a dog in the fight so to speak.

His time in Iraq has given him an up close (as up and close as a wonk will ever get) view of some of the problems we are facing. He has working knowledge that isn't restricted to one region of the world from his time at the State Department. IIRC he fairly extensive LA exposure.

Finally his tenure as ambassador to the UN has given him some exposure on how to deal with a very inefficient beaurocracy. Something I am sure he is going to need a lot of in fairly short order.

Not a great pick but not a horrible one.

Edited to add: that it appears that Lt. Gen. Mike Hayden, formerly of the NSA, will be the man behind the curtin and that Negroponte will be the public face and the liason to the WH.

[NousDefionsDoc]

I wouldn't have created the post.

But having to occupy it, I certainly wouldn't have picked a career diplomat from State.

[Huey14]

The director of the SIS here is former Foreign Affairs, I have read that he doesn't really know how to run the place and has created a climate of fear. The same thing might happen in the US.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Somebody want to take the opposing view and explain why he's a good choice?

[rubberneck]

Somebody want to take the opposing view and explain why he's a good choice?


While I think it is an uninspired choice driven by political reliability I did mention some things in his favor. I wonder if his position will largely ceremonial in nature with the heavy lifting being done by Lt. Gen Hayden.

[Huey14]

Somebody want to take the opposing view and explain why he's a good choice?

Not bogged down with internal political history, would make him unbias and can look at things without a tainted eye as much as a career intel lad would.

[Roguish Lawyer]

Somebody want to take the opposing view and explain why he's a good choice?

His prior involvement in Central America seems to suggest that he is philosophically appropriate, but I don't know if that is the case or not.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Prior involvement in what counselor?

[NousDefionsDoc]

Not bogged down with internal political history, would make him unbias and can look at things without a tainted eye as much as a career intel lad would.
Not following. You don't think State is political?

[rubberneck]

Not following. You don't think State is political?

I think he is referring to the intra agency rivalry that seems to exsist between the CIA, NSA, DIA and the others. As an outsider he won't automatically be viewed by the various agencies under him as having a bias aginst them. I could have totally misunderstood what Huey meant. If that is the case I'll shut up and sit down.

[NousDefionsDoc]

I think he is referring to the intra agency rivalry that seems to exsist between the CIA, NSA, DIA and the others. As an outsider he won't automatically be viewed by the various agencies under him as having a bias aginst them. I could have totally misunderstood what Huey meant. If that is the case I'll shut up and sit down.
State is a huge part of that problem.

[Huey14]

No, you're right rubberneck. That is what I meant. I didn't realise State was part of that problem- while I realise they do have their own intel machine.

Obviously I don't know anything, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway. If got chopped off, it got chopped off. I've learned something and God knows that's not easy :D

[CRad]

Some folks think that Negroponte's years as a diplomat make him a good choice since it'll take some diplomacy to coordinate 15 agencies. They are probably right.

I think it's his smarts and knowledge of the world in general that makes him a good choice. If he's going to have input from so many sources he has to be able to sort the wheat from the chaff. His record in the diplomatic corp has proven he has that ability. The guy has a first class mind which gives him the ability to see the bigger picture provided by separate bits of info.

His loyalty to the admin is also a plus.

NDD - Aside from Negroponte being a part of State what else do you have?

[Roguish Lawyer]

Prior involvement in what counselor?

Contras, etc.

[Roguish Lawyer]

NDD:

I agree that State is full of idiotic leftists, but is it your view that there are no career diplomats whatsoever who are right-minded? Surely there are a few rogues in there who have fought the power . . .

[NousDefionsDoc]

NDD - Aside from Negroponte being a part of State what else do you have?

Have you ever worked with State? It's enough. ;)

[NousDefionsDoc]

Contras, etc.


What was his involvement with the Contras?

[NousDefionsDoc]

NDD:

I agree that State is full of idiotic leftists, but is it your view that there are no career diplomats whatsoever who are right-minded? Surely there are a few rogues in there who have fought the power . . .
Mmm, how long could a rogue last bucking the system...

[CRad]

Have you ever worked with State? It's enough. ;)

Funny and a valid point that State is an issue in some (many) ways. On the other hand, the State Dept is simply another weapon in the arsenel, another way of dealing with problems.

Negroponte was suspected of having a hand in covert aid to the Contras. All the more reason for him to have the job, imo.

[Roguish Lawyer]

What was his involvement with the Contras?

This article was high in my google search. It is from a far-left magazine/web site involving Alexander Cockburn, so while it is undoubtedly inaccurate in various respects, I think the vitriol for Negroponte speaks volumes:

http://www.counterpunch.org/hans05112004.html

When Negroponte Was Mullah Omar
The Bloody Career of the New Ambassador to Iraq
By DENNIS HANS

Remember Mullah Omar, leader of the Taliban, the Islamist movement that mis-governed the failed state of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001? He and the Taliban played host to Osama bin Laden, providing him and his al Qaeda organization a safe haven from where they could plot terror attacks and train recruits who came to Afghanistan from every corner of the globe.

Well, it turns out that Mullah Omar has much in common with _ may even have patterned his career after _ John Negroponte, the veteran diplomat who the Senate has now confirmed for the post of U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, where he'll oversee the largest embassy and CIA station in the world.

You see, the most important chapter in Negroponte's career took place in the failed state of Honduras. From 1981 to 1985 he was the most powerful figure in that banana republic, just as Mullah Omar was The Man 15 years later in Afghanistan. And while Omar welcomed and protected bin Laden and al Qaeda, Negroponte arranged for Honduras to provide sanctuary for the nastiest terrorist group in the entire Western Hemisphere: the contras.

Yes, the contras. You may remember them as the outfit hailed by President Ronald Reagan as "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers." But the voluminous reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International show that my characterization, not Reagan's, is the correct one.

Precise body counts are hard to come by, but the contras may well have killed more defensiveless civilians in the 1980s than al Qaeda has killed in its decade of terror _ albeit one slit throat at a time rather than 3,000 blown up one day in New York and 2,000 another day in Africa, among other al Qaeda atrocities.

Negroponte was dispatched to Honduras in 1981 to replace U.S. ambassador Jack Binns, who had provoked the wrath of the Reagan administration. Binns was concerned over escalating torture and killings by Honduran security forces at a time when U.S. policy was to hush up such crimes. From the Reaganites' perspective, Binns just didn't have the right stuff to supervise what was about to become the largest U.S. embassy in Central America and the transformation of large chunks of Honduras into a sanctuary and training facility for cold-blooded killers.

The Reagan team in 1981 had an unstated policy of "regime change" in Nicaragua, although it pretended to Congress and the media (yep, both were lapdogs then, just like now!) that its actual goal was to stop the alleged flow of Weapons of Minimal Destruction (small arms and the like) from Nicaragua, overland through Honduras, and on to El Salvador, where Marxist guerrillas had the audacity to resist a 50-year-old <U.S.-backed> military dictatorship that, in 1980-81 alone, had killed 20,000 or so civilians.

But the arms flow was largely illusory (another parallel to the present), particularly by the time Negroponte arrived in Honduras. The Reaganites' pretense that the contras' mission was to interdict the alleged arms flow was a necessary lie to get a spineless and gullible Congress to fund the project. In fact, the Reaganites were all about regime change, and their chosen instrument would be led by former officers of the Nicaraguan National Guard _ itself a <U.S.-trained> outfit that killed 30-40,000 Nicaraguan civilians from 1977-79 in a vain attempt to keep in power the long-time <U.S.-backed> dictator Anastasio Somoza.

The new outfit came to be known as "contras" _ short for counter-revolutionaries, for the regime the Reaganites wanted to change was the Marxist-oriented Sandinista government. Whether called Guardsmen or contras, these guys were darn good at killing nurses and teachers, and absolutely fearless in executing captured and disarmed enemy combatants _ executions that were standard operating procedure. But the Guardia pedigree and cutthroat tactics prevented the contras from functioning as a true guerrilla force, where you live among the people you're ostensibly liberating and rely on them for food, shelter and information. Hence the need for a sanctuary in a neighboring failed state run by corrupt, authoritarian army officers and an imperious U.S. ambassador, John Negroponte.

Without that sanctuary, the contras wouldn't have lasted a month. With it, they terrorized for a decade. Relying on the U.S. for food, intelligence, arms and assassination manuals, they'd maraud through the Nicaraguan countryside for a spell, then retreat to their safe haven when they needed a break from raping, torturing and killing. Actually, they also committed such crimes in their Honduran camps, albeit at a more leisurely pace.

Unfortunately, the Nicaraguan government didn't have the firepower or the gumption to blow up the contra camps and topple the <U.S.-controlled> Honduran cabal that sustained the contras. Probably just as well, for if the Sandinistas had done so, the Reaganites would have destroyed Nicaragua and the U.S. media would have cheered the destruction. That's because only the U.S. has the right to attack a state that harbors terrorists who've killed thousands of its citizens.

Negroponte's pretend job in Honduras was to implement the pretend U.S. policy of democracy promotion. (Sound familiar?) His real job was to prevent any meaningful democracy, and to ensure that key foreign-policy decisions were made not by the democratic facade _ the irrelevant Honduran president and legislature _ but by two hard-nosed, hard-line SOBs: Negroponte and the head of the armed forces, General Gustavo Alvarez.

[continued next post]

[Roguish Lawyer]

[continued from prior post]

Thus, in the name of "democracy," Negroponte and the Reaganites not only supported military rule, they even prevented the military from practicing democracy ("one colonel, one vote") within its own institution! Alvarez's extremist views and repressive policies did not reflect a consensus within the army. Many officers believed Alvarez had prostituted the nation, sold it body-and-soul to Uncle Sam. And there were rumblings over the escalating torture and killings perpetrated by a CIA-backed army unit, Battalion 316.

So in 1984, right under Negroponte's nose, a group of officers overthrew Alvarez! This was treated in the U.S. as a "change of government," and rightly so. But democracies don't "change government" when army officers oust their boss, because in a democracy the army chief is not "the government." If Negroponte and the Reaganites had believed their own rhetoric about Honduran democracy, Alvarez's ouster would not have been a big deal, because Honduras still had the same president and legislature. But it was a big deal. Really big.

Negroponte and the CIA swung into action, confident they could marginalize a faction of reformist army officers who supported the ouster of Alvarez and wanted the new army chief to reduce repression and re-claim Honduran sovereignty. Using such time-honored democracy-enhancing and sovereignty-respecting tactics as bribery and arm-twisting, the U.S. team averted the crisis. It was a slow process, but by late 1985 (at which point Negroponte had moved on) the reformers were isolated and army power rested with a clique of CIA-bought rightwing officers.

Negroponte's team also subverted contra-affiliated individuals and groups.

Edgar Chamorro, a contra PR official whose duties included bribing Honduran journalists, received praise from his CIA handlers when he lied to U.S. reporters about the goals of the contras. But he was read the riot act on those rare occasions when he let the truth slip out, either about real goals or the routine nature of contra atrocities. Sickened by the atrocities and his role as a paid deceiver, Chamorro resigned and told his story in a sworn affadavit to the World Court in 1985.

In a letter published in the Jan. 9, 1986 New York Times, he described the end results of one particular policy countenanced by the Reagan-CIA-Negroponte crowd: "During my four years as a 'contra' director, it was premeditated policy to terrorize civilian noncombatants to prevent them from cooperating with the [Sandinista] Government. Hundreds of civilian murders, tortures and rapes were committed in pursuit of this policy, of which the contra leaders and their CIA superiors were well aware."

James LeMoyne reported in the June 7, 1987 New York Times on U.S. "support" for the Miskito faction of the contras: "Top Indian leaders and diplomats in Tegucigalpa [the Honduran capital] say that for the last five years, the CIA has relied on bribes, threats and the exile of selected Indian officials to prevent the Indians from choosing their own leaders, because it feared losing control of the Miskitos and also feared they might choose not to fight."

That is the reality behind the rhetoric of "promoting democracy," Reagan-style: thuggish tactics to prevent people from freely choosing their own leaders who would set their own course.

My guess is that when young Negroponte decided to pursue a career in diplomacy, he didn't anticipate an assignment where he would be required to subvert an impoverished country's institutions to ensure rule by a corrupt, brutal military that would rent out its country to <U.S.-trained> terrorists. But the assignment came, and Negroponte carried it out. He's obviously very bright and capable, but also amoral if not immoral.

What will his real duties be in Iraq? Will he be promoting a transition to genuine Iraqi sovereignty and democracy, or merely the appearance? He'll be supervising a huge staff of diplomats and intelligence officers. Will they respect Iraqis, or will they engage in massive bribery and other dirty tricks to manipulate and subvert Iraqi institutions and individuals? Is the real goal to purchase influence over so wide a range of Iraqis that even a freely elected government in 2005 will end up serving U.S. strategic and economic interests at the expense of Iraq's own needs and aspirations?

Negroponte is capable of promoting either real or fake democracy, and history shows that if asked to do the latter he'll nevertheless tell Congress and the media he's doing the former. And that leads to our closing parallel: The current U.S. president, just like the one we had when Negroponte was in Honduras, has a great appreciation for underlings who make false or misleading statements to keep the U.S. Congress and citizenry in the dark. Iraq is not the only nation in need of a transparent and genuine democracy.

Dennis Hans is a freelance writer who has taught courses in mass communications and American foreign policy at the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg. Prior to the Iraq war he wrote "Lying Us Into War: Exposing Bush and His 'Techniques of Deceit'" and "The Disinformation Age". He can be reached at: HANS_D@popmail.firn.edu

[CRad]

RL - I think that whole article is a warped extremist view of what occurred in Honduras and Nicaragua. I hate it when people bring that crap up especially if they weren't there doing a hard job for good people.

Negroponte was appointed Ambassador to the UN after a six month hold-up to look into his back ground. If there was any truth to what Hans writes it would have been "ferreted" out at the time. Furthermore, he gets points for being the Ambassador during a trying time - when Bush was making the case for WMD in Iraq on faulty intel. That alone gives him good reason to want to do a better job than has happened in the past.

Those who have worked with Negroponte universally say he battles fiercely to change policy -- but never take his battles public. He often talks about making sure that military and political power are harnessed for the same ends. http://www.kansas.com/mld/eagle/10945714.htm

NDD - I'm supposed to tell you that the SF tool box is not limited to sledgehammers for killing flies.

[Guy]

Have you ever worked with State? It's enough. ;)

Nevermind...I had rant a ready and decided against it!

NDD...
You had to be there at the time...

We had a State Dept employee faint durung CQB training and another run off the range when she heard the guys firing.

Had one get stuck in a cow-fence, how you do that is beyond me...fat bastard

Had another one yank the fucking steering wheel because a bunny rabbit ran across the road. Almost killed all of us that...PhD piano playing dumb fuck!

How the fuck do you get a PhD in piano playing? I'd laid out in the New Mexico desert with that liberal bastard for hours arguing politics. :eek:

Memories...Oh LORD!

[NousDefionsDoc]

Petroluem Industry liaison in a major oil produciing country. Been on the job for two years - never seen a drilling rig except in pictures.

[Trip_Wire (RIP)]

State is a huge part of that problem.

The only experience that I have had working the State Department was as an LEO supervisor doing dignitary protection works on subjects, who were not covered by the SS. In every case that I worked with them I found them lacking! :munchin

[jbour13]

First post, take it easy on me. But here's my .02: Negroponte has never held a collector position any intel organization, so he lacks rapport with that part of the community. Now for the other side of the coin, he does have the inherent skills of dealing with bureaucratic BS and with that kind of background it may foster some hope of cohesion and intel sharing. Hope is the key word.

The SECDEF has already made plans to create a DoD level intel command. He wants it to be a 4 star post to compete with the civilian side.

I work for an intel organization and state needs to stay indoors and leave the collection up to us and the shooting and nation building to the green hats.

This should sum it up. A diplomat is a person who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip. :confused:

[Roguish Lawyer]

jbour:

Please complete your profile. Thanks.

[NousDefionsDoc]

National Intelligence Director Names Key Staff John Negroponte Also Defining Role In Managing Intelligence Communities

WASHINGTON -- Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has picked his key staff members and begun to design the role he and his new organization will play in managing the 15 agencies that make up the nation's intelligence community.

One visible first step was Negroponte's taking over, starting last week, as the top-ranking intelligence official sitting in on President Bush's morning national security briefing, replacing CIA Director Porter Goss. Another was choosing to locate temporarily his headquarters and staff, which will ultimately grow to include 500 to 700 people, away from the CIA's Langley, Va., campus in a new Defense Intelligence Agency building at Bolling Air Force Base.

Negroponte and his principal deputy director, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, have decided on an organizational structure and turned to the State Department and the CIA for four of their top five aides. Congress created Negroponte's position last year as part of a reorganization to integrate and coordinate efforts of the CIA and intelligence agencies at the Pentagon, State Department, Energy Department and the FBI.

Thomas Fingar, head of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, will become Negroponte's deputy director for analysis and chairman of the National Intelligence Council, officials said Friday.

The intelligence reorganization legislation gives Fingar responsibility and authority for setting standards and coordinating objectives for U.S.
intelligence efforts, although it leaves the analysts at their respective agencies with the goal of allowing them to present independent views. Fingar will also have what a senior intelligence official involved in the process described to reporters Friday as "governance" over the President's Daily Brief, the summary of most important items given to Bush daily.

"This is an evolving process," the senior intelligence official told reporters who attended the briefing under an agreement they would not reveal his name. "We are moving from chalk to paper," he said, adding that should indicate things were far from final.

The one deputy director position that remains unfilled is a novel one, described by the senior official as "customer service." This person's role is to ensure the president and his senior policymakers, along with the military and homeland security officials, are having their intelligence needs filled. The agency is also setting up a 24-hour watch to keep Negroponte and Hayden informed of sudden changes in intelligence.
What a goat rope....