Fwd: Scheer: Hayden Is a 'Perfect' Pick

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Scheer: Hayden Is a 'Perfect' Pick

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Hayden Is a 'Perfect' Pick

 

 

Posted on May 9, 2006

Gen. Michael Hayden

From NSA.gov

 

Air Force general and CIA nominee Michael Hayden

 

By Robert Scheer

 

It makes perfect sense for President Bush to nominate Gen. Michael V. Hayden

as CIA director, no matter what the critics, including a surprising number

of normally housebroken Republicans, have to say.

 

True, Hayden was in charge of the National Security Agency during the run-up

to Sept. 11, a massive terrorist attack that intelligence agencies are built

to prevent. But remaining unflappably confident while getting it all wrong

is a vital credential for the head of the CIA under this administration.

 

Recall that former CIA Director George Tenet was honored by Bush with the

Medal of Freedom for dutifully pretending that the case for WMD in Iraq was

a " slam-dunk " and politely taking the hit on Bush's infamous " 16 words "

State of the Union lie about that African uranium.

 

The Bush administration long ago abandoned the idea that intelligence should

ever be permitted to curb this president's imperial hubris or political

agenda. Were it otherwise, the president would not be turning over control

of the CIA, long presumed to be a civilian check on the military, to an

active-duty general whose loyalty to the president was proved by his

eagerness to conduct illegal wiretapping of unsuspecting Americans.

 

Hayden passed that test superbly while head of the NSA, proudly defending

Bush's illegal eavesdropping on the same citizenry whose freedom the

president is sworn to preserve, while stonewalling the probes of Senate

Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, who considers the wiretaps

illegal.

 

" Now, with Gen. Hayden up for confirmation, this will give us an opportunity

to find out " more about the eavesdropping program, Specter told Fox News,

probably over-optimistically — especially since Hayden will be confirmed by

a Bush-friendly committee.

 

Hayden headed the NSA from 1999 until last year, when John D. Negroponte

appointed him as his top deputy upon assuming the newly created position of

director of national intelligence. And therein lies the real reason for

Hayden's appointment; his proven loyalty to Bush and his man, Negroponte,

who by forcing out Porter Goss as head of the CIA and replacing him with

Hayden now assumes unprecedented control of the vast U.S. intelligence

apparatus.

 

Hayden's track record does not otherwise justify this appointment. It was on

Hayden's watch that the NSA, after all, failed to properly alert the

president to the Al Qaeda threat. Of course, it is possible that the agency

did alert the president of an imminent threat and that the information was

ignored as the president traipsed off to his lengthy summer vacation on his

ranch; we already know that the system, as Tenet has said, was " blinking

red. " But if that is the case, Hayden has not said so.

 

Unfortunately, Hayden has other disasters besides Sept. 11 on his resume.

While at the NSA, he tried to implement the expensive, ambitious

" Trailblazer " program, aimed at upgrading NSA's technology, but analysts

have deemed the outcome a multibillion-dollar bust. Meanwhile, even a number

of prominent Republicans have attacked his bypassing of laws protecting our

civil liberties, under Bush's direction—conducting unauthorized taps on the

e-mail and phone conversations of at least 5,000 Americans.

 

" You need someone who will stand up to pressure from the president, " James

Bamford, author of two books on the NSA, told the New York Times. " Instead,

he's shown he's willing to throw out his own principles on civil liberties

to please the president. "

 

This ability to accommodate totalitarian values in exchange for career

advancement is viewed as a terrific asset by Negroponte, who handpicked

Hayden for this new job within hours of Goss' abrupt resignation.

Negroponte, after all, is most infamous for his tenure as ambassador to

Honduras during the Reagan years, when he exemplified that administration's

see-no-evil approach to monitoring the malleable military dictatorship's

human rights violations — which included everything from the army's torture

and slaughter of nuns to the regime's arming and protecting the United

States-created Contra guerrillas who were terrorizing civilians in next-door

Nicaragua.

 

No doubt, Negroponte also won the admiration of the Bush honchos through his

role during the Reagan years in supplying arms to the Contras in violation

of a congressional prohibition on such sales.

 

The inescapable conclusion here is that Negroponte was picked by Bush to be

the intelligence czar because of, rather than despite, this unsavory past.

Negroponte, with a history of disastrous foreign adventures and contempt for

the checks on power required for democratic governance, is an

all-too-perfect Bush appointee. So, too, his deputy Hayden, nominated by

Bush to head the CIA.

 

Robert Scheer is the editor of truthdig.com and author of " Playing

President. " You can e-mail him at rscheer.