Washington – Gen. Michael Hayden moved a step closer Tuesday to becoming the nation’s 20th CIA chief, where he will take over a spy agency looking for a leader to steer it through troubles ranging from al-Qaeda to Washington politics.
The Senate Intelligence Committee recommended confirmation, 12-3, with three of the panel’s seven Democrats voting against him.
If the Senate approves him before Memorial Day, as expected, Hayden could be sworn in by the end of the week.
“We think he is an outstanding choice to head the CIA,” committee chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said after the vote. “He is a proven leader and a supremely qualified intelligence professional.”
Hayden, the former National Security Agency chief who became the nation’s No. 2 intelligence official last year, has emerged as a leading advocate of the Bush administration’s warrantless-surveillance program.
That defense has raised his profile as the Senate has considered his nomination as CIA chief. It has not seemed to harm his prospects, though Democrats say the program is on shaky legal footing.
Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., joined Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Evan Bayh of Indiana to vote against Hayden.
“Gen. Hayden directed an illegal program that put Americans on American soil under surveillance without the legally required approval of a judge,” Feingold said.
At or near the top of the U.S. spy apparatus for nearly a decade, Hayden is no stranger to controversies. The CIA has a knack for attracting them.
A career Air Force officer, Hayden climbed the ladder to four-star general from the Reserved Officer Training Corps at Duquesne University. He was stationed in Guam as a junior intelligence officer at the end of the Vietnam War.
In 1999, Hayden took over the world’s largest spy agency, the NSA, as it struggled to keep up with communications technology from wireless phones to instant-messenger programs.
Hayden brought in a new deputy – Wil liam Black – who had retired from the NSA two years earlier.
As he prepares to take over the CIA, Hayden earned respect from many CIA veterans when he indicated he hopes to hire the former deputy director of the CIA’s clandestine service, Stephen Kappes, who retired after an unusually public dispute with aides to outgoing Director Porter Goss.
