US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld pushed back Tuesday against suggestions that the nomination of Air Force General Michael Hayden to head the CIA amounted to a military takeover of civilian intelligence.
President George W. Bush had named Hayden on Monday to lead the agency following the sudden departure of CIA Director Porter Goss. A third senior official, Kyle Foggo, also stepped down amid a corruption investigation, and former deputy Stephen Kappes was expected to return to the agency.
Critics questioned whether Rumsfeld was positioning the Pentagon to dominate intelligence work, particularly given his years of expanding military intelligence operations to thousands of personnel and a budget representing 80 percent of the roughly 40 billion dollars spent annually across 16 agencies.
Rumsfeld dismissed the concerns as unfounded speculation, calling the quality of the debate "pedestrian and unimpressive." He also defended Hayden's suitability for the role, noting that military figures had led the CIA on multiple occasions and that Hayden's entire career had been spent in intelligence work rather than in operational military commands.
Rumsfeld additionally rejected reports of any friction between himself and National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, under whom Hayden was serving at the time of the nomination.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in May 2006, in its own words.