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Negroponte Pledges to Improve Intelligence
The nominee to become the first U.S. national intelligence director said yesterday his “mandate” is to improve the collection of information and avoid mistakes made by agencies in recent years, the New York Times reported (see GSN, April 12). “In the past four years, our homeland has been attacked, and we have miscalculated the arsenal, if not the intent, of a dangerous adversary,” U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte told the Senate intelligence committee. “Our intelligence effort has to generate better results — that’s my mandate, plain and simple.” Negroponte said he would “push the envelope” to affirm his control over the CIA and other agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community. Republican and Democratic committee members supported that pledge, the Times reported. “We have a broken system, and you have to fix that, and to do that, you need authority,” said committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Negroponte did not offer details of his plans as intelligence director, saying that he is still working with the White House to review recommendations on the new position from the presidential WMD intelligence commission (see GSN, March 31). However, he said he would supply clear intelligence assessments and be “more specific about what we do not know.” “I believe in calling things the way I see them. And I believe that the president deserves from his director of national intelligence, and from the intelligence community, unvarnished truth.” The United States needs better intelligence on the nuclear programs of Iran and North Korea, and on insurgents operating in Iraq, Negroponte said. Incorrect assessments of prewar Iraq’s weapons stockpiles have made intelligence agencies “more cautious” in considering other nations’ weaponry, he said. The intelligence committee and full Senate could vote to approve Negroponte’s nomination this week, the Times reported (Douglas Jehl, New York Times, April 13).
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