WASHINGTON - President Bush's nomination of Gen. Michael Hayden as
CIA chief ignited a confirmation fight Monday over the intelligence veteran's ties to the controversial eavesdropping program and his ability to be independent from the military establishment.
With Hayden at his side, Bush urged senators to promptly approve the former National Security Agency head, who one year ago was confirmed unanimously to be the nation's first deputy director of national intelligence.
"Mike Hayden is supremely qualified for this position," Bush said in the Oval Office. "He knows the intelligence community from the ground up."
So President Bush considers General Hayden to be qualified to run the CIA. Interesting that Bush choose a military man to become the civilian director of the nation's top civilian spy agency. But Hayden's qualified. Consider this:
Hayden is credited with designing the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. Disclosure of the program late last year sparked an intense civil-liberties debate over whether the president can order the monitoring of international calls and e-mails in the U.S. without court warrants.
Hayden, 61, would be the seventh military officer to head the CIA since 1946. But his nomination comes at a time when lawmakers are particularly concerned about the influence of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
With Hayden's installation, active duty or retired military officers would run all the major spy agencies as well as the intelligence hub, the National Counterterrorism Center.
So lets see....Hayden would come over to the CIA, after setting up the NSA's illegal domestic spying program on American citizens. He's an active duty military man, who would join all the other active and retired military men currently running all of the nation's spy agencies. And I would wonder if Hayden's close to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld.
Can we say the CIA, under General Hayden, will embark on their own domestic spying program against American citizens?
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