Washington – Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden vigorously defended the legality of the Bush administration’s domestic wiretapping program and declared that the CIA “must be transformed” to stay abreast of terrorist and other threats during an often contentious hearing on his nomination to be the next CIA director.
Hayden spent much of the day fending off questions about his previous job as director of the National Security Agency.
The four-star general acknowledged playing a larger than previously understood role in the creation of the controversial domestic eavesdropping program, and repeatedly refused to respond to questions about details of the operation during the public portion of his testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
But Hayden also described ambitious plans for the beleaguered agency he hopes to lead next, saying he intends to push the CIA to be more aggressive in mounting clandestine operations and more rigorous in avoiding the mistakes that plagued the prewar intelligence on Iraq.
In perhaps the clearest signal of a looming shift in course for the troubled agency, Hayden made it clear that he believes the CIA has become too bogged down tracking daily developments in Iraq and other global trouble spots.
Instead, he suggested that the CIA should surrender more of that work to the Pentagon, focus more of its energies on anticipating longer-term threats and trends, and reconcile itself to a diminished role in which it is an important, but not isolated, member of the U.S. intelligence community.
At one point, Hayden likened the CIA to “a top player on a football team – critical, but part of an integrated whole. … Even the top player needs to focus on the scoreboard, not on their individual achievement.”
Hayden, 61, currently serves as the deputy director for national intelligence, the principal deputy to the nation’s top spymaster, John Negroponte, who oversees the activities of all 16 U.S. spy agencies.
The general played a behind- the-scenes role in ousting former CIA director Porter Goss, who resigned two weeks ago amid criticism that he was too turf-conscious and resistant to reforms.
Lawmakers and Senate aides emerged from Thursday’s session saying Hayden was likely to be confirmed by the Senate as early as next week.
Even so, the hearing made it clear that Hayden’s standing among some members has been diminished by his involvement in domestic surveillance programs that have been major sources of controversy for the Bush administration in recent months.
Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush authorized the NSA to intercept communications between people in the United States and individuals overseas suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda.
In doing so, the NSA bypassed the usual requirement that the government obtain permission from a court before placing wiretaps on a U.S. resident.
The Bush administration also kept the program hidden from all but a handful of lawmakers until it was exposed in news reports last year.
During one particularly tense exchange Thursday, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., challenged Hayden to reconcile details that have emerged on the scope of the surveillance operation with previous public comments downplaying its significance or suggesting that the government was not eavesdropping on Americans without court warrants.
“General, I can’t tell now if you’ve simply said one thing and done another, or whether you have just parsed your words like a lawyer to intentionally mislead the public,” Wyden said.
“What’s to say that if you’re confirmed to head the CIA, we won’t go through exactly this kind of drill with you over there?”
Hayden shot back: “Well, Senator, you’re going to have to make a judgment on my character.”
Hayden acknowledged that the program raised privacy concerns but said repeatedly that he believed it was lawful.
“I’m very comfortable with what the agency did, what I did,” he said.
