NYT: Intelligence Chief (Negroponte) Is Urged to Assert Powers Quickly

[DeepModem Mom]

Intelligence Chief Is Urged to Assert Powers Quickly
By DOUGLAS JEHL

Published: April 11, 2005


....A wide range of people who have been advising Mr. Negroponte have urged him to interpret his powers broadly, participants in the conversations say. They have argued that Mr. Negroponte must act swiftly to demonstrate to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon that he is in charge of intelligence agencies that have until now reported to other masters.

"Negroponte doesn't have much time," said Richard J. Kerr, a former deputy director of central intelligence who has been advising Mr. Negroponte. "This is a very reflexive set of organizations, and they're very good at adapting you to them, if you don't adapt them to you. Even if it's mostly symbolic, it's important that he make a big gesture quickly, to stomp his feet and let people know he's in charge."...

***

Among expected frictions are early tests of wills between Mr. Negroponte and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who will continue to control the government's biggest and richest intelligence agencies, including those responsible for eavesdropping and satellite reconnaissance. The Pentagon is also moving to assert a more active role in human spying operations.

Representative Jane Harman of California, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a principal author of the legislation that created the new job, said in an interview that she had met recently with Mr. Negroponte and General Hayden to deliver a stark warning...."The model not to replicate is what happened to Tom Ridge at Homeland Security," Ms. Harman said, referring to the Bush administration's previous experience in creating a major new post, one whose record has been uneven....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/11/politics/11intel.html

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Another model not to replicate is...

...Honduras. Are you listening, John the Butcher????

[bemildred]

2. Negroponte: Horseman of the Neo-Con Apocalypse

Geeee, he did such a great job in Iraq.

Said he'll be in charge of what will become the largest embassy in the world. Then it mentions a hitch in his nomination for UN ambassador

In the confirmation hearings, Negroponte actually had to say, "To this day, I do not believe that death squads were operating in Honduras."

How messed up do things have to be in your past for you to have to say something like that? I've never had to deny an association with death squads in any of my job interviews. What's so different between me and John Negroponte?

Maybe it's just an age difference. Long before I was born, Negroponte was working as a political officer in the Saigon embassy. He served in that capacity from 1964 to 1968, and later became Kissinger's Vietnam expert at the Paris peace talks.

http://www.diacritica.com/sobaka/2004/negroponte.html

[Demeter]

3. Why Don't They Just Mud Wrestle?

Put Negroponte and Rumsfeld in boxers and gloves or whatever, and let them duke it out. We'll be ahead by one less villain, or maybe two if they can annihilate each other!

[DeepModem Mom]

4. I would like to witness that event! And mud...

would seem a suitable medium.

[gratuitous]

5. Thank you, New York Times

Yes indeedy, that's just what we need. A headline urging the corrupt Bush administration to blunder boldly forward under the guise of "assert powers quickly." What powers does Negroponte have? Well, nobody knows exactly. But the Times is right there to say that whenever there's a judgment call to be made, Negroponte, a man of amazingly poor judgment, should take the most aggressive tack to gather power and authority to himself.

There's more than a few grieving families in Central America who can give a firsthand account of the poor quality of Negroponte's ability to handle power and authority.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. And our own Dem. Rep. Harmon apparently joins the effort. nt

[dArKeR]

7. Quickly order more anthrax assassinations or small plane crashes or

bullets to the temples?

[struggle4progress]

8. Maybe that means we should expect death squads pronto. eom

[grasswire]

9. goddam freaks