WASHINGTON, Aug 10 (AFP) - If confirmed as CIA director, Congressman Porter Goss will take over a spy agency stunned by criticism over the failure to head off the September 11 attacks and the faulty information used to justify last year's invasion of Iraq.
David Rothkopf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said President George W. Bush's advisers "probably felt that going into the next couple of months without somebody at the head of the CIA would open (them) up to criticism, and so by picking Representative Goss he avoids being open to that kind of criticism."
Bush named Goss, the chairman of the House intelligence committee and a former spy, on Tuesday to lead and revamp the troubled Central Intelligence Agency. The nomination still has to be approved by the Senate, however, and some Democrats have promised a tough battle before any vote.
"Right now, we are at a moment of very high anxiety, and I think that any area where we seem to be less than ready for the threats is a political liability for the president," Rothkopf said, adding that Bush must show that he is "committed to defend the United States in every way possible at all times."
The Bush administration raised the terror alert level for financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, New Jersey, at the beginning of the month, citing threats from al-Qaeda.
Facing a firestorm of criticism, the CIA went rudderless for nearly a month, following the departure of former director George Tenet, who announced in June that he would be stepping down for personal reasons. John McLaughlin, a 30-year CIA veteran, served as acting head of the agency in the interim.
His successor will be coming into his role as US counterterrorism agencies are undergoing a major overhaul. Bush last week announced plans to heed a recommendation by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States calling for the creation of a national intelligence director and a national counterterrorism center, with oversight authority over 15 US intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
In a report released in July, the US Senate accused the CIA of exaggerating the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction ahead of the war that overthrew Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Lawmakers reprimanded the agency for having ignored its responsibilities to recruit spies and infiltrate groups like al-Qaeda.
At the time of the September 11 attacks, there were no CIA agents in Afghanistan, even though it was common knowledge that al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was using the country as his base of operations.
Another report released in July by the independent commission investigating the September 11, 2001 terror strikes also faulted the CIA for failing to anticipate the attacks.
The CIA is no stranger to criticism, however, having come under fire following the failed "Bay of Pigs" operation to overthrow Cuban President Fidel Castro in 1961, as well as for abuses in the 1970s and during the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s.