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| Rep. Porter Goss speaks to reporters as President
Bush looks on in the Rose Garden of the White House Tuesday,
Aug. 10, 2004, in Washington. (Reuters) |
President Bush on Tuesday nominated House of Representatives
intelligence chief Porter Goss to head the CIA and quickly encountered
skepticism on whether the congressman could help revive the flagging intelligence community
after its spectacular failures over Iraq and Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush told a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden that the
65-year-old former Army intelligence officer and CIA operative would be
"the right man to lead this important agency at this critical moment."
The nomination comes as the United States faces the uncertainty of
possible terrorist attacks before the Nov. 2 election and calls for sweeping intelligence reforms
proposed by a bipartisan commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.
Among the commission's chief recommendations was to subordinate the
head of the CIA and the chiefs of other such agencies under a single, new
intelligence director.
Democrats questioned whether Goss, a Republican congressman from the
key election battleground of Florida, was too partisan for the position
and promised tough questions in the U.S. Senate, which must confirm his
nomination.
"This is the worst nomination in the history of the job," said former
CIA Director Stansfield Turner, who served as U.S. spymaster under Democrat Jimmy
Carter.
It was unclear how much authority any new CIA chief would wield, or how
long a Goss tenure might last if Bush lost the Nov. 2 election to
Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
Kerry joined Republicans and many Democrats in calling for swift
confirmation hearings for Bush's choice of a fellow Yale alumnus.
"The most important thing we can do right now is reform and strengthen
our intelligence services as the 9/11 commission has recommended. I hope
that Congressman Goss shares this view," Kerry said of the Republican
committee chairman tapped by the Bush-Cheney campaign earlier this summer
to criticize a Kerry speech on national security.
Republicans and some Democrats cited Goss' decade of service in the spy
agency andstewardship of the House of Representatives
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence since 1997.
No confirmation hearings were immediately scheduled, and lawmakers are
in recess until Sept. 7. Earlier, key Democrats said they would not
support Goss for the CIA post.
Congressional sources said Democratic doubts about Goss's enthusiasm
for reform stemmed from a bill he introduced in June that would place the
CIA director in charge of the entire U.S. intelligence community.
That appeared to contradict a central recommendation of the Sept.
11 commission -- backed publicly by both Bush and Kerry -- to create a new
national intelligence director in an effort to unite often squabbling
branches of the secret services. A Goss spokesman had no comment on the
matter.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan left open the possibility that
the position of CIA director could be transformed into national
intelligence director.
The CIA has been widely criticized for failing to provide enough
intelligence to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks and for inaccurate
information on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
(Agencies) | 
Updated: 2004-08-11 09:47