Negroponte will be “the principal adviser to the president on intelligence matters.” (Reuters)

WASHINGTON, February 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In what was largely seen as a surprise choice, US President George W. Bush on Thursday, February 17, nominated US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte as the first US director of national intelligence who will oversee all 15 US spy agencies.

“Intelligence is our first line of defense. If we're going to stop the terrorists before they strike, we must ensure that our intelligence agencies work as a single, unified enterprise,” Bush told reporters with Negroponte  to his side, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

He would be “the principal adviser to the president on intelligence matters” and would have broad powers to set the budgets for intelligence agencies.

If confirmed by the Senate, Negroponte would end his brief tenure as the first US ambassador to post-Saddam Iraq to become the first-ever director of national intelligence under legislation Bush signed eight weeks ago.

“His service in Iraq during these past few historic months has given him something that will prove an incalculable advantage for an intelligence chief:  an unvarnished and up-close look at a deadly enemy,” Bush argued.

Bush had resisted creating the new post, which was a top recommendation from the official commission that investigated the intelligence failure that led to the 9/11 attacks.

The September 11 commission criticized both the Bush and Clinton administrations for failing to thwart the deadly attacks and recommended a radical shake-up of US intelligence to meet future dangers.

Recruiting Tool

“The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists,” Goss (L) told the Senate. (Reuters)

In a new evidence of the administration’s faulty policies on Iraq, top intelligence officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that US-occupied Iraq is becoming a breeding group for extremists.

In his first public testimony since taking over the CIA last September, Porter J. Goss said “extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit” what he described as “new anti-US jihadists”, reported the Washington Post Thursday.

“The Iraq conflict, while not a cause of extremism, has become a cause for extremists,” he told the Senate Committee.

He added that extremists “who survive will leave Iraq experienced and focused on acts of urban terrorism”.

An earlier report by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank, said that Iraq has become an incubator of militants, providing them with training and recruitment ground as well as the opportunity for enhancing technical skills.

Faulty Policies

Vice Adm. Lowell E. Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate that the US foreign policy was fanning anti-American policies.

“Our policies in the Middle east fuel Islamic resentment,” he told the Senate panel.

“Overwhelming majorities in Morocco, Jordan and Saudi Arabia believe the US has a negative policy toward the Arab world,” added Jacoby.

A Pentagon report recently admitted that Washington is alienating Muslims worldwide and losing “the war of ideas” because of adopting faulty policies.

“The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies,” said the toughly-worded report of the Defense Science Board.

In August, then US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice admitted failure to win hearts and minds of the world Muslims.