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."