Context is always an important issue when analyzing contentious issues such as those now swirling around NSA and CIA director—designate Gen. Michael V. Hayden.  It tends to get lost amidst all the sound and fury, as does the central fact that the first duty of any president is to "preserve, protect & defend the Constitution of the United States."

Context regarding the ability of the NSA to do its job effectively was provided by then NSA Director Hayden during testimony before Senate and House Intelligence Committees on 17 Oct. 2002. Gen. Hayden noted how that ability was damaged during the 90s — the Clinton years.

"We are digging out of a deep hole.  NSA downsized about one—third of its manpower and about the same proportion of its budget in the decade of the 90s. That is the same decade when pocketized communications (e—commo) surpassed traditional communications...when mobile cell phone usership increased nearly 50%...when internet usage increased 90%...international telephone traffic went up to 100 billion... " 

The NSA's budget at the end of the 90s was fixed or decreasing while "demands by NSA customers (the president et al) was unrelenting," as Gen. Hayden put it.  He had to plead for $200 million, hardly sufficient.  Meanwhile, Al Qaeda, as the general put it,

"Harvested the products of a $3 trillion/year telecom industry that made communications signals varied, global, instantaneous, complex and encrypted..."

That the NSA was able to dig itself out of the deep "Clinton years hole" is a truly laudable achievement. 

On 8 May 2006 National Intelligence Director John Negroponte delivered remarks on the nomination of Gen. Hayden to be the new DCI. He elucidated Gen. Hayden's leadership capabilities and vast experience in all fields of intelligence, including human intelligence (HUMINT), that he was instrumental in creating the National Clandestine Service, which, as CIA Director, he will lead.  Here is some of what Ambassador Negroponte said:  

"In this regard, the CIA must remain the intelligence community's premier human intelligence agency. As the Director of the CIA, Mike Hayden will be responsible for coordinating all of our national clandestine human operations, something with which, as I have already noted, he has been closely involved over the past year. Mike will help grow the CIA's human intelligence capabilities, ensure that those capabilities are well—integrated with other intelligence operations, and provide crucial leadership for all of the intelligence community's human operations.

With respect to analysis, the CIA will remain the intelligence community's center of excellence. The agency's breadth and depth of analytic expertise is unparalleled. The CIA is the nation's most important repository for intelligence analysis on virtually every imaginable topic, including our highest priority areas, such as Iran, North Korea, and weapons of mass destruction. Mike Hayden knows these issues from every angle, and his experience working with all intelligence customers from the President on down makes him the ideal leader for the CIA. "

John B. Dwyer    5 14 06