Bush has appointed Air Force General and former NSA director, Michael Hayden to be the new Director of Central Intelligence. Bush just doesn't get it. There are a couple of reasons why I think Hayden is a bad choice here. One is that as a General, CIA staff may see him as continuing the trend of making CIA subservient to the Department of Defense - an obvious goal of the Neo-Con group around Rumsfeld and Cheney. If restoring morale to the CIA is a goal, this is the wrong way to do it. If abolishing the CIA and folding it into the NSA and the DIA is way to go, this is the guy to do it!
The second reason is that Hayden was head of the NSA during Bush's unconstitutional and tyrannical NSA wire tapping program (which is still ongoing!!). Hayden has a demonstrated record of being willing to violate the law to aid the partisan goals of his political masters in the Bush administration. Hayden is likely to continue the pointless waste of resources on violating the rights of groups like the Quakers, P.E.T.A. and the A.C.L.U.
I urge the Senate to give this appointment a vigorous dose of oversight - something that has been shamefully lacking since Bush was elected.
Monday, May 08, 2006
The Decider Strikes Again!
Posted by Raised By Republicans at 5:24 AM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Well, I am not sure that I am going to say the "sky is falling" with this nomination. I agree that there is reason for concern when the head of the CIA has headed up what we deem to be an unconstitutional spy program. And yes, he is military and there are concerns about having so much intelligence in the arms of the military. However, the CIA was going to be folded into the Pentagon anyway, as will all the intelligence agencies thanks to post 9/11 intelligence restructuring. I raised concerns about that before on the blog. And that is what we should worry about.
That said, Hayden will most likely be confirmed. Senator Feinstein said on NPR this morning that it she is likely to vote for confirmation. And she has a point that you need a competent manager who will work with CIA officials. Hayden, for all his faults, is a competent manager. And I in my experience, some of the most the professional officers in the military come from the Air Force. SO for me, the jury is still out on Hayden.
// posted by USWest
USWest: you said that, "the CIA was going to be folded into the Pentagon anyway, as will all the intelligence agencies thanks to post 9/11 intelligence restructuring."
That was not what I understood. I thought that intelligence agencies were being consolidated under the new National Intelligence Director, and that Republicans held up the bill for a while because Rumsfeld was afraid that the military's intelligence agencies would be taken out of the Pentagon.
I know that Rumsfeld has been trying to control all intelligence... but I thought the 9/11 commission reforms went squarely against that. I believe this appointment is another way of undermining those reforms and surrendering civilian control of our intelligence agencies.
I stand ocrrected. Memory freeze. Dr. S is correct. I got fixated on the bad idea and forgot that it had been altered, somewhat.
// posted by USwest
Post a Comment