Feb 17, 9:41 PM EST

Negroponte Selected As Intelligence Chief
By KATHERINE SHRADER
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush named John Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, as the government's first national intelligence director Thursday, turning to a veteran diplomat to revive a spy community besieged by criticism after the Sept. 11 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 tasked with bringing together 15 highly competitive spy agencies and learning to work with the combative Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the brand new CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence leaders. He'll 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.

His U.N. nomination was held up for half a year in 2001 over criticism regarding his record as ambassador in Honduras from 1981 to 1985, the time of the Iran-Contra scandal.

He was widely believed not to have been Bush's first choice for the new job, but officials denied the president had 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."

Bush signaled that he sees Negroponte as the man to steer his intelligence clearinghouse. "If we're going to stop the terrorists before they strike, we must ensure that our intelligence agencies work as a single, unified enterprise," Bush said.

Negroponte will have coveted time with the president during daily intelligence briefings and will have authority over the spy community's intelligence collection priorities. Perhaps most importantly, Bush made clear that Negroponte will set budgets for the national intelligence agencies.

"People who control the money, people who have access to the president generally have a lot of influence," Bush said. "And that's why John Negroponte is going to have a lot of influence."

Bush also announced he had chosen an intelligence insider to serve as Negroponte's deputy, Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, the National Security Agency's director since 1999. As the longest-serving head of the secretive codebreaking and eavesdropping agency, Hayden pushed for change by asking some longtime personnel to retire and increasing reliance on technology contractors.

For years, blue-ribbon commissions have proposed creating a single, powerful director to oversee the entire intelligence community, but the concept didn't gain momentum until recommended by the independent Sept. 11 Commission.

Bush and other senior administration officials initially resisted, but reversed course after an exceptional lobbying effort by the families of 9/11 attack victims. Congress approved the new post in December as part of the most significant intelligence overhaul since 1947.

Yet intelligence veterans remain concerned about whether the job will wield enough power to lead government elements that handle everything from recruiting spies to eavesdropping to steering satellites.

Some say the authorities of the intelligence chief are too ambiguous as established in the legislation. The position was also excluded from the Cabinet to shield it from politics, requiring Negroponte to work directly with more senior personalities such as Rumsfeld.

According to one informed administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, former CIA Director Robert Gates was the White House's first choice, but he and other candidates declined the post over concerns about the job's authority.

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card rejected reports that Bush had a difficult time filling the job. "It's just not true," he said.

Bush has trusted Negroponte with trying assignments. He was ambassador to the U.N. when U.S. relations with the world organization were declining over the approaching Iraq invasion. Last year, Bush sent him to Iraq as ambassador during the middle of a bloody insurgency.

Negroponte has held official posts in eight countries, including ambassadorships in Honduras, Mexico and the Philippines. He also understands the intelligence demands of policy-makers, serving in President Reagan's National Security Council from 1987 to 1989.

Some Democrats on Capitol Hill expressed concern that Negroponte's departure from Iraq would create a crucial vacancy less than a month after the country's first democratic elections.

During consideration of his U.N. nomination, critics suggested he had played a key role in carrying out the Reagan administration's covert strategy to crush the left-wing Sandinista government in Nicaragua - an element of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Human rights groups also alleged that Negroponte acquiesced in rights abuses by Honduran death squads funded and partly trained by the CIA. Negroponte said during his U.N. confirmation hearings that he did not believe death squads were operating there.

In a statement Thursday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., praised Negroponte's selection and said the panel would hold a confirmation hearing as soon as his duties in Iraq are complete. A Roberts aide said that could still be weeks away.

The committee's top Democrat, Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, called Negroponte "a sound choice." Others reacted more coolly.

Said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California: "As one who has disagreed with Ambassador Negroponte for over 20 years ... I am pleased that he is now in a position that doesn't have anything to do with policy."

This guy should have an interesting challenge.
Especially since Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld told
Congress today he has no clue how many
insurgents there are in Iraq.

15,000 insurgents killed or captured and no clue on
the enemy's strength. That's encouraging.

Chief of Intelligence for GW Bush...now there's
an oxymoron.

With the news about the Halliburton's abuses on innocent Iraqis, I wonder whether Negroponte's known past involment in the Honduras' abuses might hinder his work.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/John_Negroponte

From 1981 to 1985 under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, John Negroponte was the US Ambassador to Honduras. According to The New York Times, Negroponte was responsible for "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinistas government in Nicaragua." As ambassador, he oversaw the growth of military aid to Honduras from $4 million to $77.4 million a year, a country at that time ruled by a right-wing military dictatorship.

During his tenure, human rights abuses in Honduras became systematic. He oversaw the creation of the El Aguacate air base, where the US trained Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980's. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site. The base was also used as a torture camp. Negroponte knew of all of these human rights abuses and torture and aided the Honduran death squads, all the while lying to Congress about his involvement and what was really happening.

Negroponte served at the US Ambassador to the United Nations from 2001 until 2004.

Negroponte currently serves as the US Ambassador to Iraq, taking over for Paul Bremer following the June 30, 2004 handover.

http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/index.php/Contras
A group of people unsatisfied that the Sandinista regime that was in power, so they decided to unite and kill men, women, and children.

The Contras began to form in the wake of the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship by the Sandinista revolutionary army in 1979. Many of the Contras were former soldiers of the National Guard of the Somaza dictatorship, but some Contras were Sandinista dissidents disillusioned with the new revolutionary regime. One of the more notable members of the Sandanista dissident factions was Eden Pastora, whose nom de guerra was "Commandante Cero", a former Sandinista leader and hero.

The Contras received help from various people, these people include: John Negroponte, Oliver North, Pat Robertson, Paul Weyrich, Elliott Abrams and more.

What the Honduras press says about Negroponte:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17308594.htm

Cold War warrior reputation hangs over Negroponte
17 Feb 2005 23:29:36 GMT

Source: Reuters

By Gustavo Palencia

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Feb 17 (Reuters) - John Negroponte, the new U.S. intelligence chief, is seen as a smart operator with global experience but he is remembered in Latin America for turning a blind eye to rights abuses during the Cold War.

Negroponte was Washington's ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s, and President Ronald Reagan's point man in Central America during what many in the region consider a dark period for U.S. policy.

At that time, Central America was being ravaged by civil wars. Marxist rebels had taken power in Nicaragua in a 1979 revolution. Rebels were also fighting guerrilla wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, where U.S.-backed governments and military chiefs were resorting to murder and torture to quash the uprisings.

On Negroponte's watch, Honduras was the logistics base and training ground for the U.S.-backed Contra rebels fighting the left-wing Sandinista government in neighboring Nicaragua.

Washington gave Honduras hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid, and critics say Negroponte repeatedly lied about the human rights atrocities committed by Honduras' armed forces in order to keep the local military on the U.S. side.

"He is a sophisticated rogue," said Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs think-tank in Washington after U.S. President George W. Bush named the career diplomat as his intelligence chief. "Negroponte's stint in Honduras was filled with chicanery and deception."

DEATH SQUADS

Hundreds of suspected leftists were murdered or were never seen again after being picked up by the Honduran army and allied paramilitary groups. Many were killed by the army's notorious 3-16 Battalion, which operated as a death squad.

Although the number of death squad victims in Honduras was much lower than in El Salvador and Guatemala, Negroponte came under fire for denying any knowledge of the repression.

"He was very well informed and he was in charge of an embassy that had great importance and influence in Honduras. He knew what was going on and, although he had the information, he did not prevent it happening," said Leo Valladares, a former head of the Honduran government's human rights commission.

In a 1993 report, Valladares accused former governments of a dirty war against opponents and said U.S. and Argentine military advisors took part in the Honduran campaign.

Negroponte's record in Central America at one point threatened to derail his bid to become U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2001. Senate confirmation hearings were delayed for months but he was then quickly approved to the post after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on Washington and New York.

Still, Negroponte's toughest critics figure he'll win quick approval to the new intelligence post, despite the past misgivings over what happened in Honduras.

But there were still plenty of complaints in Honduras.

"Negroponte knew of and supported the military death squads that made almost 200 people disappear and killed dozens more for political reasons," said Berta Oliva, who heads a group representing the relatives of those who disappeared in the early 1980s.

"DEATH SQUADS

Hundreds of suspected leftists were murdered or were never seen again after being picked up by the Honduran army and allied paramilitary groups. Many were killed by the army's notorious 3-16 Battalion, which operated as a death squad.

Although the number of death squad victims in Honduras was much lower than in El Salvador and Guatemala, Negroponte came under fire for denying any knowledge of the repression.

"He was very well informed and he was in charge of an embassy that had great importance and influence in Honduras. He knew what was going on and, although he had the information, he did not prevent it happening," said Leo Valladares, a former head of the Honduran government's human rights commission.

In a 1993 report, Valladares accused former governments of a dirty war against opponents and said U.S. and Argentine military advisors took part in the Honduran campaign."
---------------------------
National Director of Intel...
who better to authorize Bush's Death Squads?
The Khamar Rouge would be proud. Welcome to America.

You know, just about the time you start to think it can't get any worse, they surprise you with something like this appointment.

It's incredible.

It should be inconceivable.

But with these neocons in power, it's just BAU - Business As Usual!

Bush has finally got his private hit man to enforce the patriot act. With a $40Billion budget, I expect to see a lot of 'disapperances' and 'accidents' occuring wherever there is disagreement with the Washington regime.