International Herald Tribune Editorial - Negroponte's newest job
International Herald Tribune Editorial - Negroponte's newest job
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: January 5, 2007
The No. 2 job in the State Department is technically a step down from John Negroponte's present post of director of national intelligence. But the reported return to the foreign- policy fold of this former ambassador to Baghdad, and, before that, to the United Nations, has a certain logic to it.
The diplomacy-challenged Bush administration could surely use the help. We hope that Negroponte can provide Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with the intellectual and bureaucratic reinforcement she so desperately needs to help guide the administration to a wiser course on Iraq.
Negroponte certainly has experience. In a 40-plus year career — including an early stint as a political officer in Vietnam — he has also served as ambassador to Honduras (during Ronald Reagan's Contra war), Mexico and the Philippines. He is known as a canny, and sometimes ruthless, bureaucratic player. What he doesn't have, unfortunately, is much of a reputation for challenging the unwise policy presumptions of his bosses.
In his 10 months in Baghdad from mid-2004 to mid-2005, Negroponte undoubtedly saw the yawning gap between Iraq's grim reality and the delusional claims of success issuing from Washington. While President George W. Bush and other top officials trumpeted effective military training programs, a flowering Iraqi democracy and an insurgency ever on its last legs, anyone on the ground had to see paper Iraqi battalions, the rise of sectarian militias and ever- expanding chaos.
If Negroponte made a serious effort to jolt his bosses back to the real world, there is no public record of it. That will have to change if he is to have any chance of improving things. Before confirming him, the Senate should make sure he understands that asking hard and unwelcome questions is an essential part of the job.
Negroponte's switch will mean another wrenching shift in the top ranks of America's deeply troubled intelligence agencies. One of the main problems that the national intelligence director's job was created to solve was the destructive rivalries between intelligence agencies run by the Defense Department and their civilian counterparts.
That infighting reached a crescendo during the reign of Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, a former director of central intelligence, will have the credibility — and we hope the will — to calm those rivalries and improve interagency coordination. Even then, Bush must quickly find a credible replacement for Negroponte, preferably one who is willing to jolt his bosses with the truth. This administration's record of failures in Iraq is matched only by its failures on intelligence.
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: January 5, 2007
The No. 2 job in the State Department is technically a step down from John Negroponte's present post of director of national intelligence. But the reported return to the foreign- policy fold of this former ambassador to Baghdad, and, before that, to the United Nations, has a certain logic to it.
The diplomacy-challenged Bush administration could surely use the help. We hope that Negroponte can provide Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with the intellectual and bureaucratic reinforcement she so desperately needs to help guide the administration to a wiser course on Iraq.
Negroponte certainly has experience. In a 40-plus year career — including an early stint as a political officer in Vietnam — he has also served as ambassador to Honduras (during Ronald Reagan's Contra war), Mexico and the Philippines. He is known as a canny, and sometimes ruthless, bureaucratic player. What he doesn't have, unfortunately, is much of a reputation for challenging the unwise policy presumptions of his bosses.
In his 10 months in Baghdad from mid-2004 to mid-2005, Negroponte undoubtedly saw the yawning gap between Iraq's grim reality and the delusional claims of success issuing from Washington. While President George W. Bush and other top officials trumpeted effective military training programs, a flowering Iraqi democracy and an insurgency ever on its last legs, anyone on the ground had to see paper Iraqi battalions, the rise of sectarian militias and ever- expanding chaos.
If Negroponte made a serious effort to jolt his bosses back to the real world, there is no public record of it. That will have to change if he is to have any chance of improving things. Before confirming him, the Senate should make sure he understands that asking hard and unwelcome questions is an essential part of the job.
Negroponte's switch will mean another wrenching shift in the top ranks of America's deeply troubled intelligence agencies. One of the main problems that the national intelligence director's job was created to solve was the destructive rivalries between intelligence agencies run by the Defense Department and their civilian counterparts.
That infighting reached a crescendo during the reign of Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Rumsfeld's replacement, Robert Gates, a former director of central intelligence, will have the credibility — and we hope the will — to calm those rivalries and improve interagency coordination. Even then, Bush must quickly find a credible replacement for Negroponte, preferably one who is willing to jolt his bosses with the truth. This administration's record of failures in Iraq is matched only by its failures on intelligence.
posted by Carlos T Mock @ 7:11 AM
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