WASHINGTON -- The abrupt departure of John Negroponte as the nation's spy chief prompted angry responses from Capitol Hill and triggered new debate Thursday over whether the position created to fix the U.S. intelligence problems is itself fundamentally flawed.
President Bush is expected to announce today that Negroponte is leaving the post to become the top deputy at the State Department. Bush also is set to nominate retired Vice Adm. Michael McConnell to be the next director of national intelligence.
The shuffle comes just 18 months into Negroponte's tenure at the job. And while he has received mixed reviews for his reform efforts, lawmakers and senior intelligence officials said the switch is a significant setback for the office, which oversees the16 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA.
"I'm very concerned that taking out the top guy at a critical juncture is going to cause some backsliding," said Rep. Jane Harman of California, who was the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee when Congress passed the legislation creating the DNI post. "It's a very steep learning curve. And any new person will have to play catch-up."
Negroponte's departure is the second major exit from the DNI office in a matter of months. His top deputy, Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, left last spring to become director of the CIA. When Negroponte and Hayden were nominated for the intelligence posts in 2005, they were described as a team whose combined skills and expertise were indispensable to the success of establishing the new agency and enacting sweeping intelligence reform measures passed in 2004 by Congress.
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Negroponte's DNI departure has been rumored for weeks, and officials close to him have said that the lifelong diplomat was eager to return to the State Department, particularly for such a senior role.
But intelligence veterans said it was clear that Negroponte was chafing under the limitations of his position as intelligence chief. While the job was created to coordinate the activities of U.S. spy agencies and improve communication among them, it has widely been criticized for lacking complete authority over those agencies' operations, personnel and budgets.
