Congress Gives Negroponte Two Thumbs Down

Finally, bi-partisan consensus - Negroponte sucks.

Representatives Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, and Jane Harman, Democrat of California, [are afraid] that Negroponte, the overseer of U.S. spy agencies, is creating just another blanket of bureaucracy, muffling rather than clarifying the dangers that exist in the world.

In an April 6 report, the intelligence committee warned that Negroponte's office could end up not as a streamlined coordinator, but as "another layer of large, unintended and unnecessary bureaucracy." The committee withheld part of Negroponte's budget request until he persuaded members he had a workable plan.

I wonder how much they withheld. Probably, pittance - just grandstanding for November.

[But,] Negroponte strongly defended his record.

"I don't see us as another bureaucratic layer at all," he said. "What's changed is that for the first time, there's a high- ranking official in charge of managing the intelligence community."

[The office has] "about 100 tasks to do," and added: "We've just gotten started. A year is not a long time."

At $44-billion-a-year (!!!), one year is plenty.

"I don't think we have a lot to show yet for the intelligence reform," said Mark Lowenthal, a former top CIA official and congressional intelligence staff member. "What's their vision for running the intelligence community? My sense is there's a huge hunger for leadership that's not being met.". . .

"At the agencies, officers are telling me, 'All we got is another layer,'" he said.

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"The title is director, not ambassador," Harman said. "The skill sets are very different. The goal is not to grow a bureaucracy."

Who's she kidding?