María Elvira Salazar: “I rise in support of Ambassador John Negroponte's nomination to be the first Director of National Intelligence. I am…”

“I rise in support of Ambassador John Negroponte's nomination to be the first Director of National Intelligence. I am pleased President Bush filled this critical position, and pleased that the Senate Intelligence Committee moved with such dispatch to move him through the process. The Director of National Intelligence will be one of the most difficult jobs in Washington. The director will have to integrate information from 15 Federal agencies involved in gathering anti-terrorism information. To break down the boundaries that fracture our intelligence community, Negroponte will have to draw on more than 40 years' experience in the Foreign Service. He served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2001 until last June, when he became the first U.S. ambassador to Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War. He served in the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968 and has been ambassador to Mexico, the Philippines and Honduras. Mr. Negroponte is going to have to take advantage of his closeness with President Bush to overcome some of the institutional inertia within the intelligence community. However, Negroponte cannot allow that closeness to be a double-edged sword. The DNI needs to be an independent voice. He needs to be able to withstand pressure from the President and report threats to American security as they are, not as others want them to be.…”