President Obama’s choice to be the next director of national intelligence supported the view that Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq sent weapons and documents to Syria in the weeks before the 2003 U.S. invasion.
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper, a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and current undersecretary of defense for intelligence, will be the next DNI. President Obama announced Gen. Clapper as his nominee Saturday, saying he must not fall victim to Washington politics.
He will replace retired Adm. Dennis Blair, who resigned after 16 months in the position following several disputes with other intelligence leaders and, in particular, the CIA.
Gen. Clapper’s selection is a rebuke to senior members of the congressional oversight committees who had said they hoped Mr. Obama would nominate a civilian as his top intelligence adviser and someone with whom the president shares a personal relationship.
Gen. Clapper will be the fourth director of national intelligence since the position was created in 2005 to oversee and coordinate all 16 independent intelligence agencies.
Two former DNIs, John Negroponte and Navy Adm. Mike McConnell, have said Congress needs to fix the law to give the director more authority over the budgets of the 16 intelligence agencies.
Gen. Clapper, according to one senior intelligence official, has argued inside the government that the secretary of defense had veto authority over the office of the DNI with regard to military intelligence budgets. Eighty-five percent of the intelligence budget goes to military or Pentagon programs, such as spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping.
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