A new director for a new direction

No one really knows why Porter Goss suddenly resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency last week, but more importantly no one really knows why he was appointed.

True, Goss had once been a CIA agent himself, back in the 1960s, but thereafter he had pursued a political career for 30-plus years before President Bush asked him to take over the reins of the agency. We all know that politics makes strange bedfellows, but does it make good spies?

Perhaps not, but even if Goss understood spycraft, there is also the question of whether he had adequate experience managing a large agency to be trusted with the delicate powderkeg of intrigue which is the CIA.

His resignation makes it clear he did not.

So now the president will try again to answer the charge of the 9/11 commission and create a more intelligent intelligence agency - one that is less concerned about politics and more concerned about getting it right.

Thus, President Bush announced this week that he is naming Gen. Michael Hayden as the new CIA director.

Surprisingly, that brought forth some relatively loud opposition from within the president's own party. Most notably, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the House intelligence committee chairman, called Hayden "the wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time."

We wondered why that might be, so we decided to look up Hayden's record for ourselves. He is a four-star general in the Air Force and is considered the highest-ranking military intelligence officer in the armed forces.

Is his military background what makes him the wrong person?

We hope not, since the men and women of the military represent the finest aspects of the American character. God forbid we exclude our loyal military from service to the civilian government.

Besides which, there have been active military representatives tapped to be the head of the CIA before. Harry Truman appointed an admiral as the first man to hold the position, and there have been others since. Not to mention the numerous directors who came from a military background such as Stansfield Turner, the former admiral who served Jimmy Carter.

With or without the uniform, retired or active service, those who have served their country in the armed forces should not be disqualified from government service - rather they should be considered more qualified.

There is a law that doesn't allow BOTH the director and deputy director of the CIA to be active military personnel. Since the current deputy is an admiral, he would need need to be replaced if Hayden is confirmed. The president has already planned for that and has announced that retired CIA official Stephen Kappes would return to the agency as the new deputy under Hayden.

Well, if it is not his role in the military, then perhaps it is Hayden's extensive background in national security and intelligence that makes him the wrong person to head the CIA.

We see that Hayden was appointed by President Bill Clinton as director of the National Security Agency, where he served from 1999 until 2005, when he became deputy director of national intelligence under John Negroponte. All accounts speak of him as a highly professional, diligent and independent-minded public servant who has gotten the job done whatever he was asked to do.

The wrong man at the wrong place at the wrong time? We think not.

Probably what really angers his critics is that Hayden played a key role in the warrantless surveillance program that has pursued terrorist collaborators in the United States. Fine, let them be angry. Responsibility for the program belongs to President Bush, not Gen. Hayden, and the president has already accepted that responsibility.

What we need now is a renewed focus on national security and human intelligence and we think Gen. Hayden is well-positioned to do that job well.