Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President George W. Bush named U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte to be the first director of national intelligence, a position created to improve the collection and sharing of information about terrorist threats.

Negroponte will serve as head of the U.S. intelligence community, a role filled until now by the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. CIA Director Porter Goss will now focus exclusively on that agency, while the national intelligence director will oversee intelligence collection at 15 government agencies including the CIA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the National Security Agency.

``John will make sure that those whose duty it is to defend America will have the information they need to make the right decisions,'' Bush said in announcing the nomination today at the White House.

Negroponte, 65, is a career diplomat who 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. There, he saw violence aimed at U.S. forces and their allies while overseeing reconstruction projects and the formation of an Iraqi government.

The nomination is subject to confirmation by the Senate.

Bush also announced that Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden would serve as Negroponte's deputy. Hayden, 59, has led the national Security Agency since 1999. The agency is the lead U.S. cryptologic organization, directing government efforts to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information.

State Department Tenure

Negroponte worked at the U.S. State Department for 37 years, including stints as U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Honduras and the Philippines.

In May, the Senate voted 95-3 to confirm Negroponte as ambassador to Iraq. In casting one of the dissenting votes, Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, said there are questions about whether he covered up human rights abuses while he was ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s during the administration of President Ronald Reagan.

``Providing timely and objective national intelligence to you, the Congress, the departments and agencies, and to our uniformed military services is a critical national task,'' Negroponte said in accepting the nomination.

Creating the position of national intelligence director was among the major recommendations of the federal commission that studied the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people.

`Unified Enterprise'

The commission found that U.S. intelligence agencies ``struggled throughout the 1990s and up to Sept. 11 to collect intelligence on, and analyze, the phenomenon of transnational terrorism.'' It recommended appointing a national intelligence director to unify the U.S. intelligence community.

``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 said at the press conference.

It took Bush two months to announce his pick to fill the job. Just yesterday, at a hearing on threats to the U.S., Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia said it is ``unacceptable'' that the administration didn't act more quickly.

Bush signed legislation on Dec. 17 creating the position and enacting other commission recommendations, including the creation of a national counter-terrorism center.

During congressional debate on the bill, lawmakers and Bush differed at times over how much authority the national intelligence director should wield over the CIA and other intelligence offices.

Questions Linger

The bill that Bush signed into law left some questions, such as the intelligence director's budgetary powers, to be worked out after the post got filled, according to a Dec. 21 report by the Congressional Research Service.

The law gives the new director ``substantial authorities over intelligence budgets, but not operational control over their activities,'' the report said. Exactly how the new director will work with other government organizations, including the Defense Department, will be spelled out in guidelines drafted by the president, the Congressional Research Service said.

In drafting the law, Congress specified its desire that either the director of national intelligence, or the director's principal deputy, be an active-duty commissioned military officer or ``have, by training or experience, an appreciation of military intelligence activities and requirements.''

Hayden's previous positions include commander of the Air Intelligence Agency and deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laurence Arnold in Washington larnold4@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 17, 2005 10:29 EST