The Nation
Today George W. Bush named him to the new post of Director of National Intelligence. Previously, Bush had hired Negroponte to be UN ambassador and then US ambassador to the new Iraq. On each of those earlier occasions, I noted that Negroponte's past deserved scrutiny. After all, during the Reagan years, when he was ambassador to Honduras, Negroponte was involved in what was arguably an illegal covert quid pro quo connected to the Iran/contra scandal, and he refused to acknowledge significant human rights abuses committed by the pro-US military in Honduras. But each time Negroponte's appointment came before the Senate, he won easy confirmation. Now that he's been tapped to lead the effort to reorganize and reform an intelligence community that screwed up 9/11 and the WMD-in-Iraq assignment, Negroponte will likely sail through the confirmation process once again.
His previous exploits, though, warrant more attention than ever. He has been credibly accused of rigging a human rights report that was politically inconvenient. This is a bad omen. The fundamental mission of the intelligence community is to provide policymakers with unvarnished and valuable information-even if it causes the policymakers headaches. But there's reason to believe that Negroponte did the opposite in tough circumstances. If that is the case, he would not be the right man to oversee an intelligence community that needs solid leaders who are committed to truth-finding. Rather than rewrite my previous work on Negroponte, I am posting below the article I did after Bush named him the viceroy of Baghdad. It's more relevant today than when it first appeared. But I doubt Negroponte's dark history will finally trigger a confirmation debate within the Senate. He has skated in the past; he'll likely do so again.
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