Legislators expect fight if general is CIA pick

Hayden stands at the center of two major political battles involving the nation's intelligence community: Pentagon control of spy operations and Bush's domestic spying program.

His nomination would intensify both disputes, lawmakers said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra, Republican of Michigan, said on ''Fox News Sunday" that Hayden is the ''wrong person" for the job because a military officer should not lead the nation's civilian spy agency.

''There's ongoing tensions between this premier civilian intelligence agency" and the Pentagon, Hoekstra said. ''And I think . . . putting a general in charge is going to send the wrong signal through the agency here in Washington, but also to our agents in the field around the world."

And Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, said a Hayden confirmation fight would give lawmakers ''leverage" to force the White House to tell them more details about the warrantless spying program so they can determine whether the program is illegal.

When he was head of the National Security Agency, Hayden designed Bush's domestic spying program.

After the program's existence was disclosed in December, Hayden became the operation's public face as its leading defender.

''I believe that his nomination will give us an opportunity to try to find out about what the program is," Specter said. ''We haven't been able to do that. . . . Now, with General Hayden coming up for confirmation, this will give us an opportunity to try to find out."

The likely fallout from Hayden's expected nomination dominated the political talk shows yesterday, as Washington continued to gauge the effect of Porter Goss's abrupt resignation as CIA director.

Goss's departure Friday marked the latest disruption at the civilian-run CIA, which has been jockeying for position with the Pentagon's spy agencies amid major recent upheavals in the nation's intelligence community.

Hayden is the deputy director of national intelligence.

If the general takes direct control of the CIA, the most important spy agency not already part of the Pentagon, the military will consolidate its control over intelligence operations.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, the Kansas Republican who will oversee any confirmation hearing for Hayden, would not say whether he would vote for Hayden, but suggested the general should resign from the military if he wants to be CIA director.

''There's some real concern about somebody from the military heading up the CIA, [but] you can solve that pretty quickly by simply resigning [from the military]," Roberts said.

Speaking on ABC's ''This Week," Senate Intelligence Committee member Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, also said Hayden should resign from the military if he takes over the CIA.

''You can't have the military control most of the major aspects of intelligence," she said, adding that the CIA ''is a civilian agency and is meant to be a civilian agency."

But Senator Saxby Chambliss, Republican of Georgia, suggested on ABC that his concerns about excessive Pentagon control of the nation's spy agencies would not subside if Hayden resigned from the military.

''I think the fact that he is part of the military today would be the problem," said Chambliss, who also sits on the Intelligence Committee. ''Resigning his commission and moving on and putting on a pinstriped suit . . . versus an Air Force uniform -- I don't think makes much difference."

Not all lawmakers were as skeptical about Bush's expected choice of a general to lead the CIA. Notably, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said on CBS's ''Face the Nation" that Hayden is ''very highly qualified."

''General Hayden is really more of an intelligence person than he is an Air Force officer," said McCain.

Several lawmakers also said that a Hayden nomination would raise new questions about the NSA's domestic spying program.

Shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans' international calls and e-mails without a warrant, as required by a 1978 surveillance law.

Bush contends that wartime powers give him the right to ignore the warrant law, an expansive view of his own powers that many legal scholars dispute.

Lawmakers said Hayden's expected nomination could open a new chapter in their efforts to investigate the spying program, including how many Americans have been wiretapped and how long their communications are stored if they turn out to be innocent.

Senator Joe Biden, Democrat of Delaware, said on Fox that Congress has ''been trying to figure out what Hayden has actually been doing in those wiretaps, and [his nomination] may give us an opportunity to figure out what the program actually is."

Feinstein, too, predicted that Hayden's involvement in the program would become a major issue during any confirmation fight.

''The domestic surveillance program has been put together by the NSA and, of course, he was part of the NSA at that time. . . . You can be sure members have major questions about this program," she said.

Representative Jane Harman of California, who has received full briefings on the spying program because she is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said on CNN that the program is illegal and that Hayden made a ''big mistake" by defending it.

But she said the Senate should not allow the White House to turn Hayden's confirmation into a battle over whether the eavesdropping program is a good idea.

Material from Globe news services was included in this report.