Bush selects new Iraqi ambassador
Feb. 17, 2005WASHINGTON -President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the government's first national intelligence director yesterday, turning to a veteran diplomat to revive a spy community besieged by criticism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Ending a nine-week search, Bush chose Negroponte, who has been in Iraq for less than a year, for the difficult job of implementing the most sweeping intelligence overhaul in 50 years. Negroponte, 65, is given the task of bringing together 15 highly competitive spy agencies and learning to work with the combative Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, new CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence leaders. He will oversee a covert intelligence budget estimated at $40 billion. Negroponte, a former ambassador to the United Nations and to a number of countries, called the job his most challenging assignment in more than 40 years of government work. He was widely believed not to have been the first choice, but Bush officials denied the president had trouble filling the position. If confirmed by the Senate, as expected, Negroponte said he planned reform of the intelligence community in ways designed to best meet the intelligence needs of the 21st century.
