A good word for Michael Hayden

Joe Conason reminds us what a grim set of choices Bush has given Congress and the public about a whole variety of things in this column in which he *supports* the approval of Michael Hayden as the CIA Director: Don't punish Hayden for Bush's sins Salon 05/19/06. Conason's line of thinking is that Hayden is a competent manager who is well-regarded by many intelligence professionals, including some who were purged in Porter Goss' partisan witch-hunt at the Agency.

While a number of senators in both parties are understandably angry over the warrantless wiretaps, they aren't inclined to make Hayden take the blame for what the president ordered him to do. They realize that any impulse to punish him for Bush's sins - or his role in concealing them - must be weighed against the opportunity to rebuild the CIA with someone as qualified as Hayden. It is imperative to repair the immense damage done by former Director Porter Goss and his entourage over the past two years. There probably won't be another chance.

Almost as soon as the White House announced Hayden's appointment came signs that the experienced analysts and operatives purged by Goss' partisan goons might return to serve under a new director. These are the people who were pushed out on political grounds because they were deemed insufficiently loyal to Bush and insufficiently enthusiastic about war in Iraq. Apparently those officers believe Hayden will foster or at least permit dissent from the official White House line. Freedom to disagree is the prerequisite for sound analysis, of course, yet that is exactly what Goss and his aides tried to suppress with their authoritarian commands and directives.

Another promising sign is that Hayden's deputy director for intelligence will probably come from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research - a stronghold of dissent from the lies and distortions pushed to justify the invasion of Iraq. Along with the return of officials and analysts purged by Goss, such a choice may indicate that Hayden's CIA will resist rather than acquiesce in the bad intelligence and stupid ideas promoted by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

In other words, despite his military uniform, Hayden is likely to be more independent of the Pentagon and the White House than Goss was. It will help that, unlike Goss, he actually knows what he's doing.

This doesn't mean Hayden is necessarily a good choice to head the CIA in the grand scheme of things. It's just that compared to the Brownies and the Bremers that Bush has been appointing, he may be the best we can hope for. Still, his association with the illegal NSA domestic spying program makes me think he shouldn't be approved for any position of responsibility in the government.

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